[2]
The Nursery
Rhyme Book
[3]
Little Bo-PeepLittle Bo-Peep
[5]
Title Page
[6]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
[7]
Preface
TO read the old Nursery Rhymes bringsback queer lost memories of a man's ownchildhood. One seems to see the loosefloppy picture-books of long ago, with their boldlycoloured pictures. The books were tattered andworn, and my first library consisted of a woodenbox full of these volumes. And I can rememberbeing imprisoned for some crime in the closetwhere the box was, and how my gaolers found me,happy and impenitent, sitting on the box, with itscontents all round me, reading.[8]
There was "Who Killed Cock Robin?" whichI knew by heart before I could read, and I learnedto read (entirely "without tears") by picking outthe letters in the familiar words. I remember theLark dressed as a clerk, but what a clerk might beI did not ask. Other children, who are little now,will read this book, and remember it well when theyhave forgotten a great deal of history and geography.We do not know what poets wrote the old NurseryRhymes, but certainly some of them were writtendown, or even printed, three hundred years ago.Grandmothers have sung them to their grandchildren,and they again to theirs, for many centuries.In Scotland an old fellow will take a child on hisknee for a ride, and sing—
"This is the way the ladies ride,
Jimp and sma',—"
a smooth ride, then a rough trot,—
"This is the way the cadgers ride.
Creels and a'!"
[9]
Such songs are sometimes not printed, but they arenever forgotten.
About the people mentioned in this book:—Wedo not exactly know who Old King Cole was, butKing Arthur must have reigned some time about500 to 600 A.D. As a child grows up, he will, ifhe is fond of poetry, read thousands of lines aboutthis Prince, and the Table Round where his Knightsdined, and how four weeping Queens carried himfrom his last fight to Avalon, a country where theapple-trees are always in bloom. But the readerwill never forget the bag-pudding, which "theQueen next morning fried." Her name wasGuinevere, and the historian says that she "was atrue lover, and therefore made she a good end."But she had a great deal of unhappiness in herlife.
I cannot tell what King of France went up thehill with twenty thousand men, and did nothingwhen he got there. But I do know who Charleywas that "loved good                         
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