Vem stoppade in tummen, petade ut plommon?
Little Jack Horner
Detta har tolkats som att rimmen var välkänd i början av 1700-talet. Careys dikt är en satir över författarkollegan Ambrose Philips, som hade skrivit infantila dikter för sina aristokratiska uppdragsgivares små barn. Även om flera andra barnvisor nämns där har den om Little Jack Horner förknippats med opportunistiska handlingar ända sedan dess. Bara sex år senare figurerade den i ett annat satiriskt verk, Henry Fieldings The Grub Street Opera (1731). Detta verk hade premiärminister Robert Walpole som måltavla och slutar med att alla karaktärer lämnar scenen "till Little Jack Horners musik".
Little Jack Horner
This has been taken to suggest that the rhyme was well known by the early eighteenth century. Carey's poem is a satire on fellow writer Ambrose Philips, who had written infantile poems for the young children of his aristocratic patrons. Although several other nursery rhymes are mentioned there, 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). This had the prime minister Robert Walpole as its target and ends with all the characters processing off the stage 'to the music of Little Jack Horner'.
Little Jack Horner