The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-12
The Mother Goose Name and Litera-
ture Well known in England and
France Long Before that Time.
Del Benton. in New York Times.


maker who said that falsehood can travel
a days journey before truth can put on her
boots. The myth that suggests this refiec-
ton pops up periodically. 1t appears in good
form at least once in a ustrum, and is
therefore, just now going the rounds of the
press again. l believe | have met with it at
intervals of not more than five years
The peripatetic tale to which refer begins
10y saying that 1T is generally thought that
Mother Goose was name got up to please
the young which. says the talemaker is
not the case. Then the wise fabulist pro-
ceeds to tell US what is the case, as follows:
There was a real Mother Goose, who sig
nalized herself by her literature for the nur-
sery. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Fos-
ter. She was born in Charlestown Mass,
where she resided until her marriage with
Isaac Goose, when she became a step
mother to ten children. AS if that was not
a sufficient family to look after, she by and
Ivy added six children of her own to the
number, making sixteen 'goslings' in all. 1t
was rather heavy handful, and we do not
wonder that she poured out her feelings in
the celebrated lines:
There was an old woman who lived in q
shoe.
She had 50 many. children she didn't know
what 10 Co "
was to form habit of entertaining her lit
lie flock by telling them little stories in
prose ana verse and singing songs, which
were mighty re iShed. One of her children
who was named Elizabeth, in due time mar
RED a Boston printer. Thomas Fleet and
when Mrs. Goose became Il widow she went
TO live with him and sang her old songs
once more to an infant grandson.
Inc conclusion Of this story is that Fleet
being needy and shrewd. thought TO turn
a penny by noting down the grandmother's
nursery songs ana issuing them to the pub
lie. me good old woman ii is stated. lived
until 1'51' and died al the advanced age Of
nlnety-tWO.
WITH VARIATIONS.
Sometimes the tale is told with some va
Ration from these details, but whether the
one lately plated" by a syndicate and sent
out to the provincial press is Just like the
one that recently appeared in Boston re-
ligious weekly, from which | have quoted, 1
have not taken the trouble to determine
Many years ago a pastor Of the church in
Boston to which this Mother Goose was said
TO have belonged preached an anniversary
sermon upon some return of her birthday
to which other exercises were added. all of
which was put into a pamphlet, which indi-
Gated that the general uneriucal local belief
In the Boston legend has now for some time
obtained a firm hold.
These conspiring assumptions make a
pretty enough story but the pity of it is, it
Is not true. There was, to be sure, a Boston
printer of the last century named Fleet and
he married into Vergoose family and this
NergOOse was frequently shortened into
Goose. All the other items in the account,
however. are false, and nobody as yet has
been, able to produce a copy of Fleets al
legged book. Il such an edition of Mother
Goose should be found which it is said
was brought out in 1719. there is still an
abundance of evidence to show that long
before that date the Mother Goose name
and the Mother Goose literature were var
iously exploited.
Their production by the famous publser
John NewbUry, of st. Pauls Churchyard,
London. for whom Oliver Goldsmith wrote.
did not occur until 1865. But the name Moth
er Goose had a further antiquity in France
In 1897 her tales were extremely popular and
were introduced under this veritabie title
"COntes de ma Mere IOye." The term
says Mr.. w. II. Whitmore, to whom 1
indebted for the most OF these facts. oc-
CURED in Laret's la Muse Historique' as
long ago as 1850, in this way:
Mas le cher motif de Ieur joye,
CONNIE un conte de la Mere rOye,
Sc trouvant fabuleux ct faux,
lis deviendrOnt tous bien peanuts"
IN FRENCH FOLKLORE.
Mother Goose" says Mr.. Whitmore. was
a popular synonym for fairy stories" and
there was also in the French the title of
Peau dane The tales told to infants as
bedtime stories TO hush them to sleep were
indiferently styled by either name. Nor
are these all the examples of this peculiar
title Our author says: Some writer's con-
meet the legend of Mother Goose with Queen
Goosefoot (Relne Pedance), said to be the
mother OF CharIemagne. At all events, it
Is as clear that she belongs to French folk
lore as that she is not TO be found in Eng
nsh tradition.
The French tales by Mother Goose were
brought out by Charles Perrault and it coud
not have been, l imagine, very long after
his publication of them when they were
translated into English. Yet 1929 IS the first
date to which their English appearance IS
traced.
OF course there are other English nursery
songs and childrens ditties that are of the
Mother Goose species that arose without
the anserine title. Halliwelfs Nursery
Rhymes of England, Collected Principally
from Oral Tradition" must contain many of
these. 1t is not unlikely that the germs and
general detailed development of both the
prose tales and melodies of Mother Goose ;
production have birth too far back TO even
trace AS have said on another occasion,
they may have come from the highlands of
Asia: and prove as ancient as the chill
dren's games literature with which some of
them seem closely allied.
UNKNOWN TO FRANKLIN.
But, to dismiss all this, does any one sup
pose that when Oliver Goldsmith, in 176S,
was heard frequently singing AN old wom-
an tossed in a blanket seventeen times as
high as the moon." he was using a song
that somebody had imported into England
from Boston? Or does any one think that
so pungent and impressive a book as the
Mother Goose Melodies" which, absorbed
in childhood, would pass on from generation
to generation, could have come out in Bos-
ton so early as 171e, without continuing
reference to the pretended Elizabeth Foster
Nergoose origin? No document or para
graph. however, of eighteenth century in
SEPARATION is anywhere to be found that veri-
fieS the Boston claim. And how did Benja-
min Franklin live through SO much of his
carly history without ever quoting 1t or
abiding TO it? AS Mr.. Whitmore Well says
If there bad been an edition printed IN
Boston In lfle, We can safely say that Ben |
tamin Franklin would have had a copy. In /
all Franklin's writings there is nothing that (
suggests a single one of these melodies, or /
any of the characters therein.
II not the era then for light rhymes I
and linglCs of their style. Boston children
OF the seventeenth century time Were fed !
on Gospel food" And high seriousness was (
the rule clear down TO and through the /
English Reader era. When we add 10 all /
this the fact that the Boston Vergoose claim I
70 the melodies only goes back q little over |
forty years 1850 and that il was started /
by a descendant Of Fleet Mrs. NergOoses /
son-in-law on ''hearsay'' fiattering to /
family pride, there is little need of pursuring /
the subject further. In Mr.. Whitmore's I
essay on the subject an account of the /
American edition os Mother Goose copied /
from Newbury, with much other matter /
that is interesting. appears, to which the /
Newbury book IN fac simile is added.
But the myth of Mother Gooses Boston /
r.-laf