The Muffin Man is preserved in the Bodleian Library with lyrics very similar to those used today: <poem> Do you know the muffin man? The muffin man, the muffin man. Do you know the muffin man Who lives in Drury Lane?</poem> Victorian households had many of their fresh foods delivered, such as muffins, which were delivered door-to-door by a muffin man. The "muffin" in question was the bread product known in the United States as English muffins, not the much sweeter cupcake-shaped American variety. Drury Lane is a thoroughfare bordering Covent Garden in London. The rhyme and game appear to have spread to
Jack and Jill (nursery rhyme) these stanzas were viewed as quatrains with internal rhymes, this would be an example of ballad form, a common form for nursery rhymes. 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 Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies the song as 10266. The phrase "Jack and Jill" was in use in England as early as the 16th century to indicate a boy and a girl. A comedy with the title "Jack