HE patronage the public have bestowed

on the previous editions of this little volume enable us to appear before them once more, but in nearly a new form, and with superior attractions. Neither pains nor expense have been spared to render our pages still more acceptable to our little readers, as well as to "children of a larger growth;" and

it is believed that the illustrations will be

considered as forming an attractive feature in

the present edition, or, at all events, agreeable adjuncts to the text. The classification also has been revised; many new pieces have been added, and others have taken the place of those which were considered the least interesting in the former impressions.

So much of our early popular ballad literature has perished, that although from internal evidence it would appear that a large number of our nursery songs are at least as ancient as the time of Queen Elizabeth, yet we have not succeeded in tracing many; but a few antiquarian novelties will be found in the following pages, and in time probably further discoveries

will be made.

Perhaps one of the most curious

in this way is the early version of the Carrion Crow, at p. 53, which is still found in the chapbook collections, and with less variation than might have been expected after the lapse of more than two hundred years. The dissemination of scraps like these through all parts of England, in forms very slightly varying from each other during a long period of years, may be considered one of the most singular facts in the history of our literature.

In the expectation of rendering our collection an unexceptionable contribution to a juvenile library, every allusion that could possibly offend the most fastidious reader has been carefully

excluded, and rhymes founded on portions of

§

the Scriptures have been altogether omitted.

These facetious compositions frequently degenerate into mere vulgarities.

An ingenious writer has lately endeavoured to find the "originals" of our nursery rhymes in the ancient Dutch language, and if the odd similarities produced by him in aid of his theory had been discovered instead of invented, it would have been an interesting subject for antiquarian investigation. But as it is, we are afraid Mr. Ker will rarely receive thanks for treating them so barbarously; nor do we owe any obligations to those who have attempted to substitute popular science in that place in the education of infants which those truly English compositions have so long occupied. We cannot

help thinking that harmless and euphonious nonsense may reasonably be considered a more useful instrument in the hands of children than that overstraining of the intellect in very early age, which must unavoidably be the result of a more refined system:

66

Roscia, dic sodes, melior lex, an puerorum nænia?"