"If All The World Were Paper" is an English country dance tune in 6/8 or 6/4 time and D Major or C Major (Playford). It was first published by John Playford as a round dance for eight persons in his English Dancing Master (1651) and in subsequent editions of the long-running Dancing Master series through the tenth edition of 1698. The last volume was published by John's son, Henry. "If all the World were Paper" is a one-strain tune in the Playford cannon. The original tune goes to an old and well-known nursery rhyme that goes:
If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were ink?
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we do for drink?

If all the world were sand O,
Oh then what should we lack O,
if as they say there were no clay
How should we take Tobacco?
etc.
“If All the World were Paper” first came to prominence during the reign of Charles I and was published in a collection called Witt's Recreation that contained a pot-pourri of poems, puzzles, witty sayings and other such material.
It was printed by Christian's A Playford Assembly (2015), Karpeles & Schofield's A Selection of 100 English Folk Dance Airs (1951), Kidson's Old English Country Dances (1890), Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984), Sharp's Country Dance Tunes (1909) and Barlow's Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master (1985).