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The earliest known collection of Nursery Rhymes was published about 1760 by John Newbery, the first publisher who devoted his attention to very young readers. In his book, which included songs from the plays of Shakespeare, some of the Rhymes appeared with titles which sound strange to our ears; thus "Ding, Dong, Bell" was called "Plato's Song", while "There were Two Birds sat on a Stone" was "Ari... More

The earliest known collection of Nursery Rhymes was published about 1760 by John Newbery, the first publisher who devoted his attention to very young readers. In his book, which included songs from the plays of Shakespeare, some of the Rhymes appeared with titles which sound strange to our ears; thus "Ding, Dong, Bell" was called "Plato's Song", while "There were Two Birds sat on a Stone" was "Aristotle's Song". To each Rhyme was appended a moral maxim, as for example, to "Is John Smith within?" is added "Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it". Most of the Rhymes in this little Newbery collection, amongst them "There was a little Man and he wooed a little Maid" and "The Wise Men of Gotham", are repeated in the present volume so far as may be in accordance with that early text. Others have been compared with early versions in chap-books issued late in the eighteenth century or early in the nineteenth.

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