Year: 1877

ing interesting biography of an author
who has become famous throughout the
world. He said


There are many things in the history Of
the Old South Church, Boston, which
help to make its name famous. But there
is one thing in the history of the Old
South Church, which has not had the
recognition it deserves. In the list of
admissions for the year 1893 occurs the
immortal name of Elizabeth Goose.
almost beg pardon of her memory for say
ing Elizabeth, since by the unanimous
verdict of the world, in whose heart her
name is enshrined, she is known as
Mother Goose" So, then Mother Goose
is no myth, as some have thought, but
once lived in Boston in veritablc flesh and
blood, as the records of the Old South
Church clearly show. 1t is also pleasure
to find that, in making Goose of herself,
she married into well-to.do family, where
in due time, she too, by putting her melo-
dies to the press, not merely laid one gold
en- egg, but has been laying a steady
succession Of them from that day to this.
For, unlike the goose in the fable, she
could not be killed, but still lives, and
yields stores of wealth to the booksellers
as often as Christmastide returns. Her
nest will not be empty SO long as there
are children and nurseries in the world
1t is almost a pity, if one may say so with
out straining the metaphor, that her edlc-
gy cannot be written with quill taken
from her own dear wing. What child in
all Christendom has not often nestled
under that wing, been brooded by it, and
forgotten every trouble in listening to her
immortal lays2


The maiden name of this venerable
lady, mother Of us all, was Elizabeth Fos-
ter. She lived in Charlestown, where she
was born, until her marriage. Then she
came to Boston, where her thrifty husband,
Isaac Goose, had green pasture ready
for her on what is now Washington street,
and including the land in aud about
Temple Place. She was his second mate,
and began her maternal life as stepmother
to ten children. These all seem to have
been lively little goslings, and tc their
number she rapidly added six more.
Think Of it Sixteen goslings to single
goose-assuming that none Of them had
been eaten up by the hawks, and that
none Of them died of crook in the neck.
Poor, happy mother goose No wonder
that her feelings were too many for her,
aud that she poured them out in the cele-
brated lines


"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
! She had 40 many children she didn't know
| what to do.


Yet her family cares seem, on the
whole, to have set lightly upon her; for
she was no wild goose, flying South OF
North with every turn of the SUM- but she
staid by her nest through cold and heat,
happy as the day is long, and living to be
ninety-two years old She even survived
the father Goose many years, and she led
and fed her flock and tenderly. brooded
them in the little enclosure on Temple
Place till they were able to swim and for.
age for themselves.


One of these, her daughter Elizabeth,
became the wife of Thomas Fleet. And
here is the fact to which We owe it that
her name and fame are spread through
the world. Thomas Fleet was a printer,
living in Pudding lane, a place whose very
name had so sayory taste in the dear old
lady's mouth that when Thomas Fleet
became a happy father she insisted on
going to live with him as nurse of honor
to his sou and heir. To coddle her own
grandchild, in Pudding lane, was the beau
ideal of blessedness for Mother Goose.
Her activity and concern in the house
were such as to throw what we read about
busy mothers-in-law wholly into the shade.
No doubt she would have been glad to
save Rome, as certain other geese once
did with their caCkling, but lacking the
opportunity to do this she sang her ditties
from morning till night "up stairs and
down stairs in my lady's chamber" till
her son.in-law became sensibly alarmed at
the fertility of her genius. Sing she must,
however, for was she not poet, full of
the divine fire which refuses to be quench-
ed 1t is well for the world that she was
law unto herself No upstart son.in-law
could control her, or keep her from hum
ming and cooling at her own sweet will.


And now it was not Roman Senate,
but Boston printer, that her persistent
music awakened. A happy thought oc-
CURED to Thomas Fleet He printed and
sold songs and ballads at his printing house
in Pudding lane. Was it not sign of
something good about to come to him,
that this precious mother-in-law, with her
endless rockings and lullabys, had put her
self in his way? He stopped asking the
irrepressible songster to rock less, and
urged her TO sing more. And while she
sat in her arm chair, or shuffled about the
room lost in sweet dreams, he carefully
wrote down what he could of the rhymes
which fell from her lips. His notes rap
idly accumulated, and in little while he
had enough of them to make volume.
These he now printed, and bound them
into book, which he offered for sale under
the following title "Sougs for the Nur-
sery; or Mother Goose's Melodies for Chil-
dren. Printed by I. Fleet, at his Printing
House, Pudding Lane, 1919. Price two
coppers.' The title page also bore large
cut Of a veritable goose, with wide-open
mouth, showing that the proverbial irrey-
erence OF sons-in-law is not thing of re-
cent origin. They were just as saucy in
the days of Mother Goose as now, and
just as ready to turn penny at the ex-
pense Of their mothers-in-law. How the
immortal author bore this profane use of
her name, or what she thought of the un-
gracious but shrewd Thomas Fleet, history
does not say. We have every reason to
believe, that she took it just as sweetly as
she had taken all the other trials and an
noyances of her life. She possessed her
soul in patience, aud continued her gentle
ministry to the little ones; still gathering
them into her arms, and soothing and
gladdening their hearts, after the shadows
Of old age had fallen about her; not weary
of her delightful task, but as busy as ever
with it, when the time came for her moth
arlv soul N arraad lie xvtn,rv aud a., .,va,,