Mother Goose

The most popular children's book ever written was "Mother Goose's Melodies. " Mrs. Goose, or "Mother Goose, "as she was farailiarly called, ■was the mother-in-law of Thomas Fleet, a Boston printer, early in the last century. When his first ohild was born, his mother-in-law devoted all her attention to the baby, and, it is said, greatly annoyed Fleet by her persistent and not particularly musical chanting of the old English ditties she had heard in her childhood. The idea occurred to Fleet of writing down these songs and publishing tbem in book form. The oldest extant copy bears the date of 1719. The price marked on the title page was "two coppers. " This account of the origin of "Mother Goose" is discredited by some critics, who declare that in 1697Perrault published "Contes de ma Mere l'Oye, " or "Stories of Mother Goose." The name "Mother Goose" was familiar in French folklore, being used by writers of this lit. erature over a century before the time of Perrault