History of the Limerick Form from poets.org:
Though the origin of the limerick is not entirely known, it has an active, if not long, history. The form is well known to generations of English-speaking readers, by way of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, first published in 1791 as Mother Goose’s Melodies. Poets quickly adopted the form and published limericks widely. Among them, Edward Lear’s self-illustrated Book of Nonsense, from 1846, remains a benchmark. He preferred the term “nonsense” to “limerick,” and wrote many funny examples, including the following:
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!“