NURSERY RHYMES:*
Nurae Leveckdd'a Legacy, besides "being: a mighty fine -col/cation of tho most noble, memorable and -veracious Nursery Rhymes," -as the title--page-has it, is a most engaging little book of a fashion:made familiar by the ultra-modem producers of the "-Flying Fame " broadsheets. Its inky embellishments by Mr. Levet Fraser are every whit as "- Period "
as the text, for which eighteenth- and early nineteenthoentury chap- books have been drawn upon. In, some eases the reader receives the sort of shook comparable to that erperienced when reading -the Bible
in the " other " version, or in the Greek cesis-m. al. For example
"-Patty-cake, Patty-cake, Baker's man, Bake me a cake
As fast as you can. Prick it and prick it And mark it -with T, -And put in the oven For Jacky. and.m.e."
Where are the dear familiar (if heretical) "Pat-a-cake," " Pat it and prick it," and "Tommy and me " ? None of the -present • writer's generation will ever question that in this instance evolution' has brought improvement, or that the version of their youth is the best of all possible
renderings, first folios and precious-early editions notwithstanding. Of course the juxtaposition of " T " and " Jacky" subtly introduces a problem likely to be fruitful of endless explanations and embroidery :
how "T," for instaneesas it-cannot-stand for " Jacky," must obviously stand for " Me,,' and how " Me " must therefore equally obviously be .Jacky's senior=his big brother, parent, -or guardian, or perhaps his little sister,-who would naturally take the-lead in dealings with a baker's
man, and whose initial (she being called Tilde). would very properly
grace the cake-in preference to that of Jacky, he being merely a brother. 'This particular explanation is specially prepared for little boys—a version appropriate to little girls would of course -differ. For an audience of " mixed infants " the problem -would -demand• yet another solution, if a moral is to be pointed. But the engaging feature of most of the old rhymes is that they are-utterly innocent -of any ulterior moral motive - -some, indeed, heing cynically subversive of the moral atmosphere proper. to a Christian nursery. Witness this-version Of• the aequel in the Jack and Jill- tragedy:—
"Then up Jack get And home did trot
As fast as he could caper,
And went to bed To -mend his head With vinegar and brown- paper."
Not a word, not a thought for poor Jill, lying 'there gelatinously helpless at the foot of the fatal hill. If she was indeed thus, it was -clearly " up to" Jack to stand by and " first-ald " her; Whilst -if, through' breaking her fall on Jack, she was merely shaken, her place would obviously be at
Jack's bedeide, smoothing his pillow and caressing his damaged crown. It is all very unsatisfactory.
Previous page
