Page:A book of nursery songs and rhymes (1895).pdf/14

INTRODUCTION heralds and apostles of Protestant principles—such principles being scurrilous abuse of what members of the Roman Church held as sacred and respected.

Now, unhappily for Mr. Ker's argument, not one of these Netherland renderings has survived in Holland, the most Protestant country in the world, and there was absolutely no explanation of how these nursery profanities and pasquinades arrived in England, and took root there, without leaving a trace behind them. It is quite true that we drew a king from the Netherlands—William of Orange; but there is no record of his having brought over with him a fleet filled with nurse-maids, wherewith to inundate our English homes.

An equally misdirected and absurd attempt was made later by Mr. Henry George to force one of our nursery jingles into a record of English history. This was 'An attempt to show that our Nursery Rhyme, "The House that Jack built," is an historical allegory, portraying eventful periods in England's history since the time of Harold, by Henry George,' published by Griffith and Farren, 1862. A specimen of this will suffice. 'The man all tattered and torn' represents the Protestant Church under Henry VIII., 'persecuted by banishment, torture, spoliations': somewhat comical history,