Right. I love getting that background. Some of the ones that make me go hmmm...
This was published in 1915, and says in the (c.1915) foreword,
Quote:It is the only true classic edition that has been published in modern times. The two authorities which have been followed are the edition published for John Newbery's grandson in London in 1791, and probably edited by Oliver Goldsmith, and he edition published in Boston in 1833 by Munroe and Francis, called "The Only True Mother Goose melodies."
Robin and Richard
Were two pretty men;
They stayed in bed
Till the clock struck ten.
Then up starts Robin
And looks at the sky:
"Oh, Brother Richard,
The sun's very high.
You go before
With the bottle and bag,
And I will come after
On little Jack nag."
Hickety, pickety, my black hen
She lays eggs for gentlemen
Gentlemen come every day
To see what my black hen doth lay
One misty moisty morning
When cloudy was the weather
I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather
He began to compliment, and I began to grin
How do you do, how do you do,
And how do you do again?
(I like that one.)
Cock-a-doodle-doo,
My dame has lost her shoe:
My master's lost his fiddlestick,
And knows not what to do.
(Shall we start saying "shoe" instead of "purse"?)
Goosey, goosey gander, where dost thou wander?
Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber
There I met an old man that wouldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the hind legs and threw him down the stairs
"Cock, cock, cock, cock
I've laid an egg
Am I to gang ba-are-foot?"
"Hen, hen, hen, hen,
I've been up and down
To every shop in town,
And cannot find a shoe
To fit your foot
If I'd crow my hear-art out."
(Shoe again...)
