St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1898-09-14
The Origin Of Some Nursery Classics.

school.
-lNixon Waterman in L w Bulletin.
The Origin of Some Nursery Classics.
In recent number OF Lippincott's
Agnes Carr Sage tells of the origin and
history OF some famous nursery stories
and rhymes. OF Bobbie Shatoe she says:
Robert Shaftoe, Esq. belonged to an
old and respected family in the north of
England. He dwelt at Whitworth,
county Of Durham, where he was known
as "Bonny Bobby" and his portrait rep
resents him as young, handsome and
with yellow hair. fear the blond youth
was gay deceiver, for who knows but
it was poor little Miss Bcllayse OF the
estate Of Brancepeth who first sang
Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea,
With silver buckles on his knee;
When he comes back he'll marry me-
Pretty Bobby Shaftoe!
But, alas, he never did, and, If report
be true, the young heiress pinned away
and died for love OF him, while he we'd
ded Miss Anne Duncombe and left her
widow less than three years later.
There, too, was lank and lean Jack
Spratt. 1t seems thathe was no less
parsonage than an archdeacon, and the
| jingle anent him and his wife has been in
vogue for two centuries or more. 1t
originally ran:
Archdeacon Pratt would eat no fatt,
His wife would eat no lean;
l'rwixt Archdeacon Pratt and Joan his wife,
The meat was eat up clean.
But none is to me more interesting
than The Pleasant History Of Jack Hor-
ner. Containing His Witty Tricks and
| Pleasant Franks, for so is entitled very
old cbap-book, carefully preserved in the
Bodleian Library.
1t appears, so runs the tale, that an
abbott OF Glastonbury, hearing that his
majesty Henry VIII. had expressed much
Indignation at the monks daring to
build kitchen which he could not burn
down, attempted to appease him. For
this purpose he dispatched his steward,
Jack Horner, TO present the sovereign
with suitable brlbe. 1t took the form
OF big and tempting looking pie, in
which were hidden the transfer deeds OF
twelve manors-truly rich and dainty
dish to set before king" But Master
Jack had an eye out for number one"
and en- route he lifted the crust and slyly
distracted the deed OF the manor OF
Wells, which, on his return, he informed
the abbott had been given him by King
Hal. Hence the rhyme:
Little lack Horner
Sat in a corner [of wagon],
Ewing his Christine as pie;
He put in his thumb
And pulled out plum 1.-THE title-deed].
Saying, "What a brave boy am l !"
Humpty Dumpty, although remem-
bered by riddle-rhyme the answer to
which is ian egg" is said to have been
a bold, bad baron who lived in the days
of King John. So, too, the pathetic
story OF the Babes in the Wood is found
ed on an actual crime committed in the
fifteenth century. The whole history
carved on a mantle shelf may still be
seen in an ancient house in Norfolk.
Nursery tales are, as rule, more i'm
aginative than nursery rhymes, and the
majority had their birth and being in the
folklore and myths OF various nations
during the early dawn of the ages, when
half the world talked in metaphors and
parallels. Who does not know that Gin
derella was really the Egyptian maiden
Rhodope, who lived go years before
Christ, and whose tiny sandal was borne
off by an eagle as she was bathing in
the river? Wise bird, that, to drop the
wee shoe right into the lap of King
Psammetichus, thereby so exciting the
royal admiration and curiosity that he
could not rest until the small-footed
owner was discovered and made his
queen. But the cruel stepssters are COM
paratively modern improvements, who
made their debut about the time the
eagle was transformed into the fairy
godmother and Rhodope became the
Germans Aschenputtel or little cinder-
wench. Tom Thumb carries us back to
the romantic age OF King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table, when very
small dwarfs were by no means UNI
known. but were kept as pets and play
things by the wealthy.
The one single contribution OF note
that America has made to this never
diving literature of childhood is the true
story of Mary and Her Little Lamb.
Perhaps it is because Of its truth that 1t
has taken such strong hold upon the
popular fancy, for some OF the verses are
crude enough, written as they were by
Young John Rollston, boy student at
the same Massachusetts school attended
seventy years ago by Mary and her de.
voted pet. But the poem was completed
long after the demise OF the sheep, by
Mrs. Sarah Hall, quite celebrated au-
thor. That its admirers are legion was
shown at fair in Boston, as many will
remember. A stocking knitted from the
woven fleece of the famous lamb was
raveled out and pieces sold with the au-
tograph of Mary, then an aged lady,
attached; and so great was the demand
that $40 was thus won tor the Old
South Church.