e. But (3) what I am most concerned
for is, that it will be apt to make our Children think of the line in
their vulgar Play song; much like it, 'This is the maiden all forlorn.'"
We recognize at once a reference to our nursery friend of the "House
that Jack Built;" and if this and "Tom Thumb" were sold in Boston, why
should not other ditties have been among the chap-books which Thomas
remembered to have set up when a 'prentice lad in the printing-house of
Zechariah Fowle, who in turn had copied some issued previously by Thomas
Fleet? In further confirmation of Thomas's statement is a paragraph in
the preface to an edition of Mother Goose, published in Boston in 1833,
by Monroe & Francis. The editor traces the origin of these rhymes to a
London book entitled, "Rhymes for the Nursery or Lullabies for
Children," "that," he writes, "contained many of the identical pieces
handed down to us." He continues: "The first book of the kind known to
be printed in this country _bears_ [_the italics are mine_] the title,
'_Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Goose's Melodies for Children_.'
Something probably intended to represent a goose, with a very long neck
and mouth wide open, covered a large part of the title-page; at the
bottom of which was: 'Printed by T. Fleet, at his printing house,
Pudding Lane (Boston) 1719.' Several pages were missing, so that the
whole number could not be ascertained." The editor clearly writes as if
he had either seen, or heard accurately described, this piece of
_Americana_, which the bibliophile to-day would consider a treasure
trove. Later writers doubt whether any such book existed, for it is
hardly credible that the Puritan element which so largely composed the
population of Boston in the first quarter of the eighteenth century
would have encouraged the printing of any nonsensical jingles.

Boston, however, was not at this time the only place in the colonies
where primers and religious books were written and printed. In
Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, famous as the founder of the "American
Weekly Mercury," had in 1714 put through his press, probably upon
subscription, the "Last Words and Dyeing Expressions of Hannah Hill,
aged 11 years and near three Months." This morbid account of the death
of a little Quakeress furnished the Philadelphia children with a book
very similar to Mather's "Token." Not to be outdone by any precocious
example in Pennsylvania, the Reverend Mr. Mather soon found an instance
of