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  THE NURSERY RHYMES OF ENGLAND.


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  [Illustration]


  THE NURSERY RHYMES OF ENGLAND:

  Collected by

  JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL.




  THE NURSERY RHYMES

  OF

  ENGLAND.

  BY JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. B. SCOTT.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON AND NEW YORK: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.

  1886.


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  PREFACE

  TO THE

  FIFTH EDITION.


The great encouragement which has been given by the public to the
previous editions of this little work, satisfactorily proves that,
notwithstanding the extension of serious education to all but the very
earliest periods of life, there still exists an undying love for the
popular remnants of the ancient Scandinavian nursery literature.
The infants and children of the nineteenth century have not, then,
deserted the rhymes chanted so many ages since by the mothers of the
North. This is a "great nursery fact"--a proof that there is contained
in some of these traditional nonsense-rhymes a meaning and a romance,
possibly intelligible only to very young minds, that exercise an
influence on the fancy of children. It is obvious there must exist
something of this kind; for no modern compositions are found to supply
altogether the place of the ancient doggerel.

The nursery rhyme is the novel and light reading of the infant
scholar. It occupies, with respect to the A B C, the position of a
romance which relieves the mind from the cares of a riper age.
The absurdity and frivolity of a rhyme may naturally be its chief
attractions to the very young; and there will be something lost from
the imagination of that child, whose parents insist so much on matters
of fact, that the "cow" must be made, in compliance with the rules
of their educational code, to jump "_under_" instead of "_over_ the
moon;" while of course the little dog must be considered as "barking,"
not "laughing" at the circumstance.

These, or any such objections,--for it seems there are others of
about equal weight,--are, it appears to me, more silly than the worst
nursery rhyme the little readers will meet with in the following
pages. I am quite willing to leave the question to their decision,
feeling assured the catering for them has not been in vain, and
that these cullings from the high-ways and bye-ways--they have been
collected from nearly every county in England--will be to them real
flowers,