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Little Jack Horner
"Little Jack Horner" is a popular English nursery rhyme with the Roud Folk Song Index number 13027. First mentioned in the 18th century, it was early associated with acts of opportunism, particularly in politics. Moralists also rewrote and expanded the poem so as to counter its celebration of greediness. The name of Jack Horner also came to be applied to a completely different and older poem on a folkloric theme; and in the 19th century, it was claimed that the rhyme was originally composed in satirical reference to the dishonest actions of Thomas Horner in the Tudor period.
The song’s most common lyrics are:
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating his Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a good boy am I!"
It was first documented in full in the nursery rhyme collection Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, which may date from 1765, although the earliest surviving English edition is from 1791.
The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott, in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870).
The earliest reference to the well-known verse is in "Namby Pamby," a satire by Henry Carey published in 1725, in which he himself italicised lines dependent on the original:
Now he sings of Jackey Horner
Sitting in the Chimney-Corner
Eating of a Christmas pye,
Putting in his thumb, Oh fie!
Putting in, Oh fie! his Thumb,
Pulling out, Oh strange! a Plum.
This occurrence has been taken to suggest that the rhyme was well known by the early eighteenth century. Carey's poem ridicules fellow writer Ambrose Philips, who had written infantile poems for the young children of his aristocratic patrons. Although several other nursery rhymes are mentioned in his poem, the one about Little Jack Horner has been associated with acts of opportunism ever since. Just six years later, it figured in another satirical work, Henry Fielding's The Grub Street Opera (1731). Fielding's rendition had the prime minister, Robert Walpole, as its target, and ended with all the characters processing off the stage "to the music of Little Jack Horner."
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Little Jack Horner AI simulator
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Little Jack Horner
"Little Jack Horner" is a popular English nursery rhyme with the Roud Folk Song Index number 13027. First mentioned in the 18th century, it was early associated with acts of opportunism, particularly in politics. Moralists also rewrote and expanded the poem so as to counter its celebration of greediness. The name of Jack Horner also came to be applied to a completely different and older poem on a folkloric theme; and in the 19th century, it was claimed that the rhyme was originally composed in satirical reference to the dishonest actions of Thomas Horner in the Tudor period.
The song’s most common lyrics are:
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating his Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a good boy am I!"
It was first documented in full in the nursery rhyme collection Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle, which may date from 1765, although the earliest surviving English edition is from 1791.
The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott, in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870).
The earliest reference to the well-known verse is in "Namby Pamby," a satire by Henry Carey published in 1725, in which he himself italicised lines dependent on the original:
Now he sings of Jackey Horner
Sitting in the Chimney-Corner
Eating of a Christmas pye,
Putting in his thumb, Oh fie!
Putting in, Oh fie! his Thumb,
Pulling out, Oh strange! a Plum.
This occurrence has been taken to suggest that the rhyme was well known by the early eighteenth century. Carey's poem ridicules fellow writer Ambrose Philips, who had written infantile poems for the young children of his aristocratic patrons. Although several other nursery rhymes are mentioned in his poem, the one about Little Jack Horner has been associated with acts of opportunism ever since. Just six years later, it figured in another satirical work, Henry Fielding's The Grub Street Opera (1731). Fielding's rendition had the prime minister, Robert Walpole, as its target, and ended with all the characters processing off the stage "to the music of Little Jack Horner."