now have them. In Newbery's collection of "Melodies" there were numerous
footnotes burlesquing Dr. Johnson and his dictionary, together with
jests upon the moralizing habit prevalent among authors. There is
evidence that Goldsmith wrote many of these notes when doing hack-work
for the famous publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard. It is known, for
instance, that in January, 1760, Goldsmith celebrated the production of
his "Good Natur'd Man" by dining his friends at an inn. During the feast
he sang his favorite song, said to be

"There was an old woman tos't up in a blanket,
Seventy times as high as the moon."

This was introduced quite irrelevantly in the preface to "Mother Goose's
Melodies," but with the apology that it was a favorite with the editor.
There is also the often quoted remark of Miss Hawkins as confirming
Goldsmith's editorship: "I little thought what I should have to boast,
when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of paper on
his fingers." But neither of these statements seems to have more weight
in solving the mystery of the editor's name than the evidence of the
whimsically satirical notes themselves. How like the author of the
"Vicar of Wakefield" and the children's "Fables in Verse" is this
remark underneath:

"'There was an old Woman who liv'd under a hill,
And if she's not gone, she lives there still.'

"This is a self evident Proposition, which is the very essence of
Truth. She lived under the hill, and if she's not gone, she lives
there still. Nobody will presume to contradict this. _Croesa._"

And is not this also a good-natured imitation of that kind of seriously
intended information which Mr. Edgeworth inserted some thirty years
later in "Harry and Lucy:" "Dry, what is not wet"? Again this note is
appended to

"See Saw Margery Daw
Jacky shall have a new master:"

"It is a mean and scandalous Practise in Authors to put Notes to Things
that deserve no Notice." Who except Goldsmith was capable of this vein
of humor?

When Munroe and Francis in Boston undertook about eighteen hundred and
twenty-four to republish these old-fashioned rhymes, in the practice of
the current theory that everything must be simplified, they omitted all
these notes and changed many of the "Melodies." Sir Walter Scott's
"Donnel Dhu" was included, and the beautiful Shakespeare selections,
"When Daffodils begin to 'pear," "When the Bee sucks," etc., were
omitted.