Nursery‐rhyme character. First appearance in print, Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, 1744.
Public‐domain bibliography
“Bah, Bah, a Black Sheep” or “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” (nursery rhyme), Roud 4439, 1740s or earlier.
Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, by Nurse Lovechild (pseud., possibly of Mary Cooper), illustration by George Bickham Jr., 1744. (some pages, British Lib.)
Mother Goose’s Melody: Or, Sonnets for the Cradle …, compiled by John Newbery, [1760s]. (ca. 1785, Internet Archive) (ca. 1785, HathiTrust) (1791, Ind. U.) (1791, Internet Archive) (1791, HathiTrust) (1794, HathiTrust)
“Bah, Bah, Black Sheep,” Gammer Gurton’s Garland: Or, The Nursery Parnassus; A Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses, for the Amusement of All Little Good Children Who Can Neither Read nor Run, collected by Joseph Ritson, 1784. (1810, HathiTrust) (1810, Internet Archive)
Nursery Rhymes, [between 1780 and 1790]. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
Christmas Box, vol. 3, music by James Hook, 1798.
Songs for the Nursery Collected from the Works of the Most Renowned Poets, with uncredited illustration, 1805. (ca. 1808?, Internet Archive)
“Bah ! Nanny black sheep,” Mother’s Gift, 1812.
“Baa Baa, Black Sheep,” Gammer Gurton’s Garland of Nursery Songs, and Toby Tickle’s Collection of Riddles, compiled by Peter Puzzlecap (pseud.), illustration possibly by Thomas Bewick, [between ca. 1815 and 1820?]. “Yes, Mary, have I.” (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
“Baa ! baa ! good sheep,” excerpted and altered in The Doctor, &c., vol. 3, by Robert Southey, 1835. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
“The Critical Club—Two Profound Grecians,” Fragments by Leo, [by William Julius Mickle,] The European Magazine, and London Review, vol. 11, no. (1?), Jan. 1787. (HathiTrust)
“Baa Baa, Black Sheep,” by Rudyard Kipling (d. 1936), The Week’s News, 21 Dec. 1888. Reprinted in Wee Willie Winkie, and Other Child Stories, [1889]. (Internet Archive) (HathiTrust)
https://www.archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00opie/page/88