Editing Old Mother Hubbard (section)

==Byproducts==
===Pantomime===
A comic sketch published in 1818 has a character expostulate: "Is it not ridiculous for us grown people to be going to see Mother Goose, Tom Thumb, Old Mother Hubbard, and suchlike infantile fooleries; or to misspend our time at pantomimes and at rope dancings?"<ref>"The Hermit of London or Sketches of English Manners XVII", in ''The Literary Gazette'' 93, 31 October 1818, [https://books.google.com/books?id=UzpAAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Old+Mother+Hubbard%22+political&pg=RA1-PA700 p.700]</ref> What kind of show contained those characters is not explained. It was not until a decade later that there was mention of a Christmas [[pantomime#Development of pantomime in Britain|pantomime]], at the [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane]], that was "founded on the familiar nursery-tale of Old Mother Hubbard and her dog".<ref>''The Sphynx'' #24, 15 December 1827, [https://books.google.com/books?id=lMNeAAAAcAAJ&q=%22Old+Mother+Hubbard%22+political%2C&pg=PP381 p.37]</ref>
Thereafter, as many familiar characters as possible were packed into the same production, which was given a composite title. ''Mother Hubbard and Her Dog or Harlequin & Tales of the Nursery'', by [[Thomas John Dibdin]] and  [[Charles Farley]], was put on in 1833 at the [[Royal Opera House#Second theatre|Theatre Royal, Covent Garden]].<ref>Playbill at [https://theatregoing.wordpress.com/tag/old-mother-hubbard-and-her-dog Theatregoing]</ref> And for the 1861-2 season at Drury Lane there was ''Harlequin and the House that Jack Built or Old Mother Hubbard and her Wonderful Dog'' by [[Edward Litt Laman Blanchard|E.L.Blanchard]]. In this the scene opened in Mother Hubbard's cottage, where she and her dog were joined by her former rivals, Dame Trot with her cat and Dame Wiggins of Lee.<ref>Jeffrey Richards, ''The Golden Age of Pantomime'', I.B.Tauris 2014, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nL6lBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Mother+Hubbard%22+pantomime&pg=PA247 p.247]</ref>

The custom of cross referencing has persisted: as in  [[David Wood (actor)|David Wood]]’s 1975 script, where Mother Hubbard is reunited, as she was two centuries before, with the old woman who lived in a shoe.<ref>''Old Mother Hubbard'' at [http://www.davidwood.org.uk/plays/plays_old_mother_hubbard.htm the author’s website]</ref> More recently still, Paul Reakes has provided a twist to the genre with his ''Old Mother Hubbard - A Wild West Pantomime Adventure'' (1993).<ref>An online [https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/ledbury-hfds/the-market-theatre/lads-famous-family-pantomime-old-mother-hubbard-a-wild-west-pantomime-adventure/e-kmaygr synopsis]</ref>

===Comic parodies===
In 1837, [[John Hannah (Archdeacon of Lewes)|John Hannah]], then an undergraduate at [[Corpus Christi College, Oxford]], published a spoof [[textual criticism]] of "Old Mother Hubbord", supposedly written in A.D. 3211 by a [[New Zealand]] academic who tries to relate the poem to the nearly forgotten 19th-century civilisation which produced it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Halkett |first1=Samuel |title=Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature |date=1971 |publisher=Ardent Media |page=455 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EqvJftH0ggoC&pg=PA455  |language=en}}; {{cite book |last1=Hannah |first1=John |title=Critica Novazealandica futura, a notable edition of the melodrame of Old mother Hubbord, foreseen by Alfraganus Trismegistus |date=1837 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mVQOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3 |language=en |location=Oxford}}</ref> Another very popular parody was the sermon "illustrating the method upon which some parsons construct their discourses", with the rhyme's first stanza  as text, that appeared anonymously in newspapers between the 1870s and 1880s. Beginning from Britain, the item spread under such titles as "A Model Sermon", "Modern Sermon" or "A sermon of the olden times", as far as the United States<ref>''The Warren Ledger'' for 6 June 1879, [https://newspaperarchive.com/warren-ledger-jun-06-1879-p-1 p.1]</ref> and New Zealand.<ref>''The Otago Witness'', [https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW18810108.2.62.8 8 Jan 1881]</ref> In Britain it was incorporated into a chapter of [[William Cuffe, 4th Earl of Desart|the Earl of Desart]]'s novel, ''Children of Nature'' (1878).<ref>''Vanity Fair'', 5 May 1877, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ffhHAQAAMAAJ&dq=sermon+%22Old+Mother+Hubbard%22&pg=PA276 p.276]</ref> In the United States it was provided with a refutation and appeared as a pamphlet under the title ''Who was Old Mother Hubbard?'' (1882/5).<ref>Acknowledged there as reprinted from the ''Portsmouth Monitor'', [https://archive.org/details/whowasoldmotherh00unse/page/n1 New York, 1885]</ref>

[[File: Use_Aunt_Sally_Baking_Powder_Old_Mother_Hubbard.jpg|thumb|145px|A Robert Branston illustration of Mother Hubbard used on an American trade card]] 
Later parodies centred largely on the bareness of the cupboard in the first stanza. A postcard advertisement for [[Dr. Swett's Root Beer]] concludes that Mother Hubbard was unable to quench her thirst because “The kiddies had been there first”.<ref>Boston Massachusetts Advertising, [https://www.cardcow.com/564354/dr-swetts-root-beer-boston-advertising CardCow]</ref> Another postcard implied that it was the dog had been there before.<ref>Illustrated on [https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Old-Mother-Hubbard-cupboard-poor-dog-puppy/183478356299?hash=item2ab829894b:g:wN4AAOSwiYFXIHwf Ebay]</ref> In a newspaper cartoon of "Mother Hubbard up to date" from 1904, she phones the butcher to get the poor dog a bone.<ref>''Tacoma Times'', [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mother_Hubbard_Up_To_Date.jpg 18 June 1904]</ref> Two more [[sexually suggestive]] postcards from 1910 play with the concept of bareness. In one, Mother Hubbard has gone 
{{poem quote|
To get her poor daughter a gown,
But the cupboard was bare
So the damsel sat there
With little else on but a frown.<ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Hubbard-Nursery-Original-Vintage-Postcard/dp/B00P5F56EA Amazon]</ref>}}
Alternatively she went "to get her poor daughter a dress", but "the cupboard was bare, and so was her daughter, I guess."<ref>Taylor Art Co, Rhymelets, [https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/rhymelets-old-mother-hubbardempty-dress-cupboardbare-daughterpoem1910/14553061 Hippostcards]</ref>

Parodies have continued into the musical sphere too. There was a comic quartet by the Australian clergyman [[Alfred Wheeler (composer)|Alfred Wheeler]], first performed during the 1920s. This consisted of a reworking of the rhyme's opening stanza in which the principal effects are variations on "Bow-wow".<ref>[http://www0.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Old_Mother_Hubbard_(Alfred_Wheeler) CPDL]</ref><ref>A performance on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxpB_RKxFyw&list=RDVxpB_RKxFyw&start_radio=1 YouTube]</ref> It was shortly followed by [[Victor Hely-Hutchinson]]'s "Old Mother Hubbard set in the manner of Handel" (1932), where the rhyme's opening stanza is treated in the style of an oratorio.<ref>A performance on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F31VfRG5yg YouTube]</ref><ref>Score at [https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/old-mother-hubbard-sheet-music/18976573 Sheet Music Plus]</ref>

===Political use===
In the [[Elizabethan era]] there had been a much earlier ''[[Mother Hubberd's Tale]]'' by [[Edmund Spenser]] published in 1591, but that was quite different from the nursery rhyme, being a satirical beast fable concerning an ape and a fox. It was followed in 1604 by [[Thomas Middleton]]'s ''Father Hubburd’s Tales'', which contained the equally political fable of "The Nightingale and the Ant". It has also been claimed that Martin's rhyme was mistakenly thought by some to have a political meaning at first,<ref>Opie 1999, p. 377</ref> although there is no reliable evidence that this was so. However, it was soon given various political contexts. In one parliamentary debate, [[George Canning]] compared the vitality of the [[British constitution]], then declared to be under threat, to the swift revival of Mother Hubbard's dog when she bought him a coffin.<ref>[[Joachim Hayward Stocqueler]], ''The Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington'', London 1853, [https://books.google.com/books?id=XKykVMEEfjMC&dq=%22Old+Mother+Hubbard%22+political&pg=PA143 vol.2, p.143]</ref> And at a later date her bare cupboard was introduced into several political cartoons, generally dealing with financial deficits. These included items in the American publications [[The Wasp (magazine)|''The Wasp'']] (1881),<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wasp_1881-02-12_Old_Mother_Hubbard.jpg Wikimedia]</ref> [[Judge (magazine)|''Judge'']] (1897),<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_McKinley_as_Old_Mother_Hubbard_1897_cartoon.jpg  Wikimedia]</ref> and [[The Spokesman-Review|''Spokesman Review'']], titled "Mother Hubbard up to date".<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WCMorris_Spokesman-Review_cartoons_062.jpg Wikimedia]</ref> There was also a British poster of 1905 titled "The Cupboard Still Bare".<ref>[https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/the-cupboard-still-bare/71070 LSE Digital Library]</ref>