THE KING WAS IN THE PARLOR, COUNTING OUT HIS MONEY;
THE QUEEN WAS IN THE KITCHEN, EATING BREAD & HONEY.
THE MAID WAS IN THE GARDEN, HANGING OUT THE CLOTHES;
THERE CAME A LITTLE BLACKBIRD & PECKED OFF HER NOSE.
The Home Treasury.
TRADITIONAL NURSERY SONGS
of
ENGLAND.
with
PICTURES BY EMINENT MODERN ARTISTS.
EDITED BY
FELIX SUMMERLY.
LONDON: JOSEPH CUNDALL, 12, OLD BOND STREET.
1843
The Copyright of these Works is registered pursuant to Statute 5 and 6[Pg iii]Vic. c. 45.
PREFACE.
So my dear Madam, you think Nursery Songs mere trash, not worthutterance or remembrance, and beneath the dignity of the "march of mind"of our days! I would bow to your judgment, but you always talk so loudin the midst of a song; look grave at a joke—and the leaves of thatcopy of Wordsworth's Poems, presented to you on your birthday—I willnot say how many years ago, still remain uncut. Facts like these, andothers constantly occurring, prove that your ear cannot relish melody;and that poetry does not touch your feelings. Besides, you are stillunmarried, and you say, I record it with regret, "you hate children."Doubtless you were never born a child yourself.
It is to mothers, sisters, kind-hearted aunts, and even fathers, who aresummoned to become unwilling vocalists at break of day by younggentlemen and ladies of two years old; and to all having the charge of[Pg iv]children, who are alive to the importance of cultivating their naturalkeenness for rhyme, rhythm, melody, and instinctive love for fun, that Ioffer this first part of a collection of Traditional Nursery Songs. ThisCollection has been in progress for more than ten years, and it is nowpublished, after a revision, with all the editions by Ritson, andothers, that I have been able to meet with.
The Pictures, though made especially for the benefit of my youngaudience, will not, I feel pretty sure, be uninteresting to moreadvanced connoisseurs. I am not at liberty to mention the names of theartists who in their kind sympathies for children have obliged me withthem. It is a mystery to be unravelled by the little people themselves,who, as they advance in a knowledge and love of beauty, will not fail torecognize in the works of some of the best of our painters of familiar[Pg 5]life, the pencils of those who gave them early lessons in genuine art.
TRADITIONAL NURSERY SONGS.
A diller, a dollar,
A ten o'clock scholar,
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o'clock,
And now you come at noon.
A long tailed pig, or a short tailed pig,
Or a pig without a tail,
A sow pig, or a boar pig,
Or a pig with a curly tail.
...