_O Mrs. Gurton--(may I call thee Gammer?) Thou more than mother to my infant mind! I loved thee better than I loved my grammar-- I used to wonder why the Mice were blind, And who was gardener to Mistress Mary, And what--I don't know still--was meant by "quite contrary."_ C. S. C. The dates that stand after the separate rhymes refer to the list of English collections on p. 11; the capital letters in brackets refer to the list of books on p. 221. COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES CHAPTER I FIRST APPEARANCE OF RHYMES IN PRINT The study of folk-lore has given a new interest to much that seemed insignificant and trivial. Among the unheeded possessions of the past that have gained a fresh value are nursery rhymes. A nursery rhyme I take to be a rhyme that was passed on by word of mouth and taught to children before it was set down in writing and put into print. The use of the term in this application goes back to the early part of the nineteenth century. In 1834 John Gawler, afterwards Bellenden Ker, published the first volume of his _Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Phrases and Nursery Rhymes_, a fanciful production. Prior to this time nursery rhymes were usually spoken of as nursery songs. The interest in these "unappreciated trifles of the nursery," as Rimbault called them, was aroused towards the close of the eighteenth century. In a letter which Joseph Ritson wrote to his little nephew, he mentioned the collection of rhymes known as _Mother Goose's Melody_, and assured him that he also would set about collecting rhymes.[1] His collection of rhymes is said, in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, to have been published at Stockton in 1783 under the title _Gammer Gurton's Garland_. A copy of an anonymous collection of rhymes published by Christopher and Jennett at Stockton, which is called _Gammer Gurton's Garland or the Nursery Parnassus_, is now at the British Museum, and is designated as a "new edition with additions." It bears no name and no date, but its contents, which consist of over seventy rhymes, agree with parts 1 and 2 of a large collection of nursery rhymes, including over one hundred and forty pieces, which were published in 1810 by the publisher R. Triphook, of 37 St. James Street, London, who also issued other collections made by Ritson. [1] _Letters of Joseph Ritson_, edited by his Nephew, 1833. 27 April, 1781.