The Wond’rous Wise Man
Jack Horner
The Man in the Moon
Little Bo-Peep
Tommy Tucker
Tom, the Piper’s Son
Humpty Dumpty
Three Wise Men of Gotham
Introduction.
None of us, whether children or adults, needs an introduction to
Mother Goose. Those things which are earliest impressed upon our minds
cling to them most tenaciously The snatches sung in the nursery are
never forgotten, nor are they ever recalled without bringing back with
them myriads of slumbering feelings and half-forgotten images.
We hear the sweet, low voice of the mother, singing soft lullabies to
her darling, and see the kindly, wrinkled face of the grandmother as
she croons the old ditties to quiet our restless spirits. One
generation is linked to another by the everlasting spirit of song; the
ballads of the nursery follow us from childhood to old age, and they
are readily brought from memory’s recesses at any time to amuse our
children or our grandchildren.
The collection of jingles we know and love as the ”Melodies of Mother
Goose” are evidently drawn from a variety of sources. While they are,
taken altogether, a happy union of rhyme, wit, pathos, satire and
sentiment, the research after the author of each individual verse
would indeed be hopeless. It would be folly to suppose them all the
composition of uneducated old nurses, for many of them contain much
reflection, wit and melody. It is said that Shelley wrote ”Pussy-Cat
Mew,” and Dean Swift ”Little Bo-Peep,” and these assertions are as
difficult to disprove as to prove. Some of the older verses, however,
are doubtless offshoots from ancient Folk Lore Songs, and have
descended to us through many centuries.
The connection of Mother Goose with the rhymes which bear her name is
difficult to determine, and, in fact, three countries claim her for
their own: France, England and America.
About the year 1650 there appeared in circulation in London a small
book, named ”Rhymes of the Nursery; or Lulla-Byes for Children,” which
contained many of the identical pieces that have been handed down to
us; but the name of Mother Goose was evidently not then known. In this
edition were the rhymes of ”Little Jack Homer,” ”Old King Cole,”

remarks made to him. Indeed, as Mr. William H. Whitmore points out in
his clever monograph upon Mother Goose (Albany, 1889), it is very
doubtful whether in 1719 a Boston printer would have been allowed to
publish such ”trivial” rhymeѕ. ”Boston children at that date,” says
Mr. Whitmore, ”were fed upon Gospel food, and it seems extremely
improbable that an edition could have been sold.”
Singularly enough, England’s claim to the venerable old lady is of
about the same date aѕ Boston’s. There lived in a town in Sussex,
about the year 1704, an old woman named Martha Gooch. She was a
capital nurse, and in great demand to care for newly-born babies;
therefore, through long years of service as nurse, she came to be
called Mother Gooch. This good woman had one peculiarity: she was
accustomed to croon queer rhymes and jingles over the cradles of her
charges, and these rhymes ”seemed so senseless and silly to the people
who overheard them” that they began to call her ”Mother Goose,” in
derision, the term being derived from Queen Goosefoot, the mother of
Charlemagne. The old nurse paid no attention to her criticѕ, but
continued to sing her rhymes as before; for, however much grown people
might laugh at her, the children seemed to enjoy them very much, and
not one of them was too peevish to be quieted and soothed by her
verses. At one time Mistress Gooch was nursing a child of Mr. Ronald
Barclay, a physician residing in the town, and he noticed the rhymes
she sang and became interested in them. In time he wrote them all down
and made a book of them, which it is said was printed by John
Worthington & Son in the Strand, London, in 1712, under the name of
”Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goose.” But even this story of Martha
Gooch is based upon very meager and unsatisfactory evidence.
The earliest English edition of Mother Goose’s Melodies that is
absolutely authentic was issued by John Newbury of London about the
year 1760, and the first authentic American edition was a reprint of
Newbury’s made by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., in 1785.
None of the earlier editions, however, contained all the rhymes so
well known at the present day, since every decade has added its quota
to the mass of jingles attributed to ”Mother Goose.” Some of the
earlier verses have become entirely obsolete, and it is well they
have, for many were crude and silly and others were coarse. It is
simply a result of the greater refinement of modern civilization that
they have been relegated to oblivion, while the real gems of the
collection will doubtless live and grow in popular favor for many
ages.
While I have taken some pains to record the various claims to the
origin of Mother Goose, it does not matter in the least whether she
was in reality a myth, or a living Eliza Goose, Martha Gooch or the
”Mere Oye” of Perrault. The songs that cluster around her name are
what we love, and each individual verse appeals more to the childish
mind than does Mother Goose herself.


——TBC——
先发这么多吧。明天继续。

鼓掌＞＜辛苦了小纠～

要是有朗诵版就好了……望天,亲爱的辛苦了

朗诵啊…目前偶一直是DIY＝＝…

望楼上，yuki录一个发给我吧……

（捂脸）…偶今天上午被老师说：读课文越来越像CNN播新闻了…你们想听鹅妈妈新闻么TwT…

回复：16楼
我想听的说= =！其实有些故事按新闻播报的方式读，就成了凶杀案再现

This is Forest News from cc*v, a dead Cock Robin was claimed to be found in the forest this morning…（喂！） 

回复：18楼
=w=！！老天啊太有爱了

于是偶真的想酝酿鹅妈妈新闻了＝＝…不过还是等再学一学吧…有时间偶录一段朗读好了，大家帮偶挑挑毛病＝///＝…

于是期待ing…