Morning journal and courier., 1893-05-13
Gw SATURDAY 13

ding lone, much less to her own goslings, for she departed this life in 1757. She was sixty four years old when the work was first translated, and her first grand l child was then @ youth of fourteen, prob ably occupying the position of "devtl" in his fathers printing office, and much above being put to sleep with Rocksby baby" songs, even had his grandmamms possessed one of those very earliest copies from which to sing 1t.
 But neither was Charles PerrAult, the writer and scholar the author of the fa- nous jingles. He collected and edited them, and they stand for the child-lore of the centuries behind him. It is related by some Latin writer of oldsn times that on the rear wall of the Basilica in Rome, built 1sa B. O., there were ohissled by express command of its founder lines beginning "Ausercula, auEerculs,"
 which, being freely translated, is
 -aoosey goosey gander."
 "Dicory, dicory dock,
 The mouse ran up the olock," .. Is found in the Greek of Aristotle and in the Latin of StIabo.
 "Hey diddls diddle" is from the Latin, and was inspired by a performance of the Phyrric dance. "The House That Jack Built" is said to have been e Chaldaic re- ligious hymn. Little Bo-Peep's origin Is lost in the mists of antiquity, but 1t may be read upon the skies, for the constella- tions Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Arctu- rus received their former names from their fsncied connection with. this legend.
 Tom Thumb is said to have been genu- inc character. @ dwarf of King Arthur's court, and @ valiant man though but an inch in height. An old rhyme says:
 '.In Arthur's court Tom Thumb did live,
 A man of mickle might,
 The best of all ths Table Bound,
 And eke doughty knight"
 Mother Eve was undoubtedly the origi- nal Mother Goose, and she charmed the little nestllng Cain, the sweetest tsby under the sun, with the lullabies that mothers sing to-day. As he swsyed In his dainty hammock of rushes and grass, pen dant from dropping bouQhs, his mother watched him and sang the earliest version of
 "Rockaby baby, upon the tree top
 When he wind blows the cradle will rock" or assured him that his father had
 ''Gone hunting
 To get @ little rabbit skin
 To wrap the Baby Bunting iu."
 But why was the name "Goose" chosen as that of the author of this collection of ancient lorei Simply because the goose was oncs looked upon as tbe symbol, not
 
 telligenoe, nobility. majesty, these are the characteristics of the goose as found in mythical legends of long ago. To be called Ca goose' to day is considered the reverse of complimentary, but not so in the Gold en Age when the goose was a sacred em- blem and typified all that was great and wise.
 Perhaps 1t is for this reason that some wise people Of the present age have endeav- ored to find and bring to light the hidden meanings of even the simplest-seeming rhymes of "Mother Goose" These have been very fsnciful and far fetched, and have pleased us more by their ingenuity than convinced us by their plausibility But these wiseacres may bs right after all, and we shall have more respect for the | doggere1 attributed to "Mother Goose" with its imping metres and defective rhymes, if we can be made to believe it collection of folk lore, embodyinR, though ever so rudely and obscurely. the myths. philosophies and beliefs of all ages and all | nations. HILARY.