This is not a “burlesque” of the story of ‘Mother Hubbard,’ but a good-humoured parody of the popular (?) “regulation” sermon. It appeared originally in 1877, in a novel by Lord Desart, who claimed it in a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in December, 1886, in which he says that “one of his characters delivered it as a mock sermon,” and adds that it has been copied into “most of the provincial English and Scotch, and into many American and Canadian newspapers.” He adds:―― “I myself heard it preached by a negro minstrel at Haverley’s, New York; it has been neatly printed, with an introduction, by a clergyman, and sent round to his brother preachers as an example of how not to do it; it was bought for a penny in a broadsheet form in the City a year or two ago by a friend of mine; it has been heard at countless penny readings and entertainments of the kind; it has appeared among the facetiæ of a guide-book to Plymouth and the South Coast; and in a volume published by the owners of St. Jacob’s Oil, as well as in another jest-book; and the other day I was shown it in a collection of _ana_, just published by Messrs. Routledge & Co., for a firm in Melbourne; and all this without any acknowledgment of its authorship whatsoever. Perhaps you will allow me, through your columns, to claim my wandering child――‘a poor thing, but mine own.’” ――――:o:―――― Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, Eating a Christmas pie; He put in his thumb, and he took out a plum, And said, “What a good boy am I!” These lines form part of “The pleasant History of Jack Horner, containing his witty Tricks and pleasant Pranks,” a copy of which is in the Bodleian Library, the story must have been in existence earlier than 1617, at which date a similar tale was printed in London founded upon it. VERSIO ALTERA. Horner Jacculo sedit in angulo Vorans, ceu serias ageret ferias, Crustum dulce et amabile; Inquit et unum extrahens prunum―― “Horner, quam fueris nobile pueris Exemplar imitabile.” HENRY DRURY. From _Arundines Cami_. Cambridge, 1841. JOHANNIS HORNERII JACTATIO. Hornerius Johannes In angulo sedebat, Et ibi in silentio Artocream edebat. Extraxit prunum digito Et statim se jactabat―― “Ecce quam bonus puer sum!” Hornerius clamabat. _The Hornet._ May 29, 1872. ―――― Studious Jack Horner, of Latin no scorner, In the second declension did spy How nouns there were some, Which, ending in um, do not make their plural in i. CHESSMEN. _Truth._ September 30, 1886. ―――― THE MODERN JACK HORNER.