<P> The character of Humpty Dumpty was popularised in the United States by actor George L. Fox (1825--77). As a character and literary allusion, he has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture, particularly English author Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking - Glass (1872), in which he was described as an egg . The rhyme is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No. 13026 . </P> <P> The rhyme is one of the best known in the English language . The common text from 1954 is: </P> <P> Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall . All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again . </P> <P> It is a single quatrain with external rhymes that follow the pattern of AABB and with a trochaic metre, which is common in nursery rhymes . The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (London, 1870), as outlined below: </P>

Where did the song humpty dumpty come from