Nursery Antiquities

: NURSEY STORIES
: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales

Although the names of Scott and Grimm may be enumerated amongst the

writers who have acknowledged the ethnological and philosophic value of

traditional nursery literature, it is difficult to impress on the public

mind the importance of a subject apparently in the last degree trifling

and insignificant, or to induce an opinion that the jingles and simple

narratives of a garrulous nurse can possess a worth beyond the circle of
br /> their own immediate influence.



But they who despise the humbler sources of literary illustration must

be content to be told, and hereafter to learn, that traces of the

simplest stories and most absurd superstitions are often more effectual

in proving the affinity of different races, and determining other

literary questions, than a host of grander and more imposing monuments.

The history of fiction is continually efficacious in discussions of this

kind, and the identities of puerile sayings frequently answer a similar

purpose. Both, indeed, are of high value. The humble chap-book is found

to be descended not only from medieval romance, but also not

unfrequently from the more ancient mythology, whilst some of our

simplest nursery-rhymes are chanted to this day by the children of

Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, a fact strikingly exhibiting their great

antiquity and remote origin.



The subject, however curious and interesting, is far too diffuse to be

investigated at any length in a work like the present; and, indeed, the

materials are for the most part so scattered and difficult of access,

that it would require the research of many years to accomplish the task

satisfactorily. I shall, then, content myself with indicating a few of

the most striking analogies between the rhymes of foreign countries and

those of our own, for this portion of the inquiry has been scarcely

alluded to by my predecessors. With regard to the tales, a few notices

of their antiquity will be found in the prefaces or notes to the stories

themselves, and few readers will require to be informed that

Whittington's cat realized his price in India, and that Arlotto related

the story long before the Lord Mayor was born; that Jack the

Giant-killer is founded on an Edda; or that the slipper of Cinderella

finds a parallel in the history of the celebrated Rhodope. To enter into

these discussions would be merely to repeat an oft-told tale, and I

prefer offering a few notes which will be found to possess a little more

novelty.



Of the many who must recollect the nursery jingles of their youth, how

few in number are those who have suspected their immense age, or that

they were ever more than unmeaning nonsense; far less that their

creation belongs to a period before that at which the authentic records

of our history commence. Yet there is no exaggeration in such a

statement. We find the same trifles which erewhile lulled or amused the

English infant, are current in slightly varied forms throughout the

North of Europe; we know that they have been sung in the northern

countries for centuries, and that there has been no modern outlet for

their dissemination across the German Ocean. The most natural inference

is to adopt the theory of a Teutonic origin, and thus give to every

genuine child-rhyme, found current in England and Sweden, an immense

antiquity. There is nothing improbable in the supposition, for the

preservation of the relics of primitive literature often bears an

inverse ratio to their importance. Thus, for example, a well-known

English nursery rhyme tells us,--



There was an old man,

And he had a calf,

And that's half;

He took him out of the stall,

And put him on the wall,

And that's all.



A composition apparently of little interest or curiosity; but Arwidsson,

unacquainted with the English rhyme, produces the following as current

in Sweden, Svenska Fornsanger, iii. 488, which bears far too striking a

similarity to the above to have had a different origin,--



Gubben och gumman hade en kalf,

Och nu aer visan half!

Och begge sa koerde de halfven i vall,

Och nu aer visan all!



We could not, perhaps, select a better instance of this kind of

similarity in nepial songs as current throughout the great northern

states of Europe than the pretty stanza on the ladybird. Variations of

this familiar song belong to the vernacular literature of England,

Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. The version at present current in the

North of England is as follows:



Lady-cow, lady-cow, fly thy way home,

Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone;

All but one that ligs under a stone,

Fly thee home, lady-cow, ere it be gone![1]



[Footnote 1: In Norfolk the lady-bird is called

burny-bee, and the following lines are current:



Burnie bee, burnie bee,

Tell me when your wedding be.

If it be to-morrow day,

Take your wings and fly away.]



These lines are said by children, when they throw the beautiful little

insect into the air, to make it take flight. Two Scottish variations are

given by Mr. Chambers, p. 170. In Germany it is called the Virgin Mary's

chafer, Marienwuermchen, or the May-chafer, Maikaeferchen, or the

gold-bird, Guldvogel. In Sweden, gold-hen, gold-cow, or the Virgin

Mary's maid. In Denmark, our Lord's hen, or our Lady's hen. We may first

mention the German song translated by Taylor as frequently alluded to by

writers on this subject. The second verse is the only one preserved in

England.



Lady-bird! lady-bird! pretty one! stay!

Come sit on my finger, so happy and gay;

With me shall no mischief betide thee;

No harm would I do thee, no foeman is near,

I only would gaze on thy beauties so dear,

Those beautiful winglets beside thee.



Lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home;

Thy house is a-fire, thy children will roam!

List! list! to their cry and bewailing!

The pitiless spider is weaving their doom,

Then, lady-bird! lady-bird! fly away home!

Hark! hark! to thy children's bewailing.



Fly back again, back again, lady-bird dear!

Thy neighbours will merrily welcome thee here;

With them shall no perils attend thee!

They'll guard thee so safely from danger or care,

They'll gaze on thy beautiful winglets so fair,

And comfort, and love, and befriend thee!



In Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Arnim und Brentano, 1808, iii. 82, 83, 90, we

have three German songs relating to the lady-bird. The first two of

these are here given:



Der Guldvogel.



Guldvogel, flieg aus,

Flieg auf die Stangen,

Kaesebrode langen;

Mir eins, dir eins,

Alle gute G'sellen eins.



"Gold-bird, get thee gone, fly to thy perch, bring cheese-cakes, one for

me, one for thee, and one for all good people."



Maikaeferchen, Maikaeferchen, fliege weg!

Dein Haeusgen brennt,

Dein Muetterchen flennt,

Dein Vater sitzt auf der Schwelle,

Flieg in Himmel aus der Hoelle.



"May-bird, May-bird, fly away. Thy house burns, thy mother weeps, thy

father stays at his threshold, fly from hell into heaven!"--The third is

not so similar to our version. Another German one is given in Kuhn und

Schwark, Norddeutsche Sagen, 1848, p. 375:



Maikaeferchen, fliege,

Dein Vater ist im Kriege,

Dein Mutter ist in Pommerland,

Pommerland ist abgebrannt!

Maikaeferchen, fliege.



"May-bird, fly. Thy father is in the war, thy mother is in Pomerania,

Pomerania is burnt! May-bird, fly."--See, also, Erk und Irmer, Die

Deutschen Volkslieder, Berlin, 1839, iv. 7, Das Maikaeferlied. For the

two pretty Swedish songs which follow I am indebted to the MS. of Mr.

Stephens. The first is common in the southern parts of that country, the

other in the northern.



Guld-hoena, guld-ko!

Flyg oester, flyg vester,

Dit du flyger der bor din aelskade!



"Gold-hen, gold-cow! fly east, fly west, you will fly where your

sweetheart is."



Jungfru Marias Nyckelpiga!

Flyg oester, flyg vester,

Flyg dit der min kaeresta bor![2]



[Footnote 2: This is a very remarkable

coincidence with an English rhyme:



Fly, lady-bird, fly!

North, south, east, or west;

Fly to the pretty girl

That I love best.]



"Fly, our holy Virgin's bower-maid! fly east, fly west, fly where my

loved-one dwelleth." In Denmark they sing (Thiele, iii. 134):



Fly, fly, our Lord's own hen!

To-morrow the weather fair will be,

And eke the next day too.[3]



[Footnote 3: The lady-bird, observes Mr.

Chambers, is always connected with fine weather

in Germany and the north.]



Accumulative tales are of very high antiquity. The original of "the

House that Jack Built" is well known to be an old Hebrew hymn in Sepher

Haggadah. It is also found in Danish, but in a somewhat shorter form;

(See Thiele, Danske Folkesagn, II. iii. 146, Der har du det Huus som

Jacob bygde;) and the English version is probably very old, as may be

inferred from the mention of "the priest all shaven and shorn." A

version of the old woman and her sixpence occurs in the same collection,

II. iv. 161, Konen och Grisen Fick, the old wife and her piggy

Fick,--"There was once upon a time an old woman who had a little pig

hight Fick, who would never go home late in the evening. So the old

woman said to her stick:



'Stick, beat Fick, I say!

Piggie will not go home to-day!'"



This chant-tale is also common in Sweden. One copy has been printed by

N. Lilja in his Violen en Samling Jullekar, Barnsanger och Sagor, i. 20,

Gossen och Geten Naeppa, the boy and the goat Neppa,--"There was once a

yeoman who had a goat called Neppa, but Neppa would never go home from

the field. The yeoman was therefore forced to promise his daughter in

marriage to whoever could get Neppa home. Many tried their fortune in

vain, but at last a sharp boy offered to ward the goat. All the next day

he followed Neppa, and when evening came, he said, 'Now will we

homeward go?' but Neppa answered, 'Pluck me a tuft or so,'" &c. The

story is conducted in an exactly similar manner in which the

denouement is brought about in the English tale.[4]



[Footnote 4: Two other variations occur in

Arwidsson, Svenska Fornsanger, 1842, iii. 387-8,

and Mr. Stephens tells me he has a MS. Swedish

copy entitled the Schoolboy and the Birch. It is

also well known in Alsace, and is printed in that

dialect in Stoeber's Elsassisches Volksbuechlein,

1842, pp. 93-5. Compare, also, Kuhn und Schwark,

Norddeutsche Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche, 1848,

p. 358, "Die fra, dos hippel un dos hindel."]



The well-known song of "There was a lady lov'd a swine," is found in an

unpublished play of the time of Charles I. in the Bodleian Library, MS.

Bodl. 30:



There was a lady lov'd a hogge;

Hony, quoth shee,

Woo't thou lie with me to-night?

Ugh, quoth hee.



A similar song is current in Sweden, as we learn from Arwidsson, Svenska

Fornsanger, iii. 482, who gives a version in which an old woman, who had

no children, took a little foal, which she called Longshanks, and rocked

and nursed it as if it had been her own child:[5]



Gumman ville vagga

Och inga barn hade hon;

Da tog hon in

Foelungen sin,

Och lade den i vaggan sin.

Vyssa, vyssa, langskanken min,

Langa ben bar du;

Lefver du till sommaren,

Blir du lik far din.



[Footnote 5: It is still more similar to a pretty

little song in Chambers, p. 188, commencing,

"There was a miller's dochter."]



Another paradoxical song-tale, respecting the old woman who went to

market, and had her petticoats cut off at her knees "by a pedlar whose

name was Stout," is found in some shape or other in most countries in

Europe. A Norwegian version is given by Asbjoernsen og Moe, Norske

Folkeeventyr, 1843, and, if I recollect rightly, it is also found in

Grimm.



The riddle-rhyme of "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" is, in one form or

other, a favorite throughout Europe. A curious Danish version is given

by Thiele, iii. 148:



Lille Trille

Laae paa Hylde;

Lille Trille

Faldt ned af Hylde.

Ingen Mand

I hele Land

Lille Trille curere kan.



Which may be thus translated:



Little Trille

Lay on a shelf:

Little Trille

Thence pitch'd himself:

Not all the men

In our land, I ken,

Can put Little Trille right again.



And Mr. Stephens has preserved two copies in his MS. Swedish

collections. The first is from the province of Upland:



Thille Lille

Satt pa take';

Thille Lille

Trilla' ner;

Ingen laekare i hela verlden

Thille Lille laga kan.



Thille Lille

On the roof-tree sat;

Thille Lille

Down fell flat;

Never a leech the world can show

That Thille Lille can heal, I trow.



Another from the province of Smaland:



Lille Bulle

Trilla' ner a skulle;

Ingen man i detta lan'

Lille Bulle laga kan.



Down on the shed

Lille Bulle rolled;

Never a man in all this land

Lille Bulle helpen can.



It will now only be necessary to refer to the similarities pointed out

in other parts of this work, to convince the reader that, at all events,

a very fair case is made out for the truth of the positions we have

contended for, if, indeed, sufficient evidence of their absolute truth

is not adduced. They who are accustomed to researches of this kind, are

too well aware of the facility with which the most plausible theories

are frequently nullified by subsequent discovery; but there appears in

the present case to be numerous conditions insoluble by any other

supposition than that of a common origin, and we are therefore fully

justified in adopting it as proved.



Turning to the nursery rhymes of our own country, it will tend

materially to strengthen the results to which we have arrived, if we

succeed in proving their antiquity in this island. We shall be enabled

to do so satisfactorily, and to show that they are not the modern

nonsense some folks may pronounce them to be. They illustrate the

history and manners of the people for centuries. Here, for instance, is

a relic in the form of a nursery rhyme, but in reality part of a

political song, referring to the rebellious times of Richard the

Second.[6]



My father he died, I cannot tell how,

But he left me six horses to drive out my plough!

With a wimmy lo! wommy lo! Jack Straw, blazey-boys!

Wimmy lo! wommy lo! wob, wob, wob!



[Footnote 6: I am here, and in a few other cases,

quoting from myself. It may be necessary to say

so, for my former collections on this subject

have been appropriated--"convey, the wise it

call"--in a work by a learned Doctor, the preface

to which is an amusing instance of plagiarism.]



An infant of the nineteenth century recalling our recollection to Jack

Straw and his "blazey-boys!" Far better this than teaching history with

notes "suited to the capacity of the youngest." Another refers to Joanna

of Castile, who visited the court of Henry the Seventh in 1506:



I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear

But a golden nutmeg and a silver pear;

The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me,

And all for the sake of my little nut-tree.



We have distinct evidence that the well-known rhyme,[7]



The King of France went up the hill,

With twenty thousand men:

The King of France came down the hill,

And ne'er went up again--



was composed before 1588, It occurs in an old tract called Pigges

Corantoe, 1642, where it is entitled "Old Tarlton's Song," referring to

Tarlton the jester, who died in 1588. The following one belongs to the

seventeenth century:



As I was going by Charing Cross,

I saw a black man upon a black horse;

They told me it was King Charles the First;

Oh dear, my heart was ready to burst!



[Footnote 7: An early variation occurs in MS.

Sloane 1489:



The king of France, and four thousand men,

They drew their swords, and put them up again.]



Political nursery-rhymes, or rather political rhymes of a jingling

character, which, losing their original application, are preserved only

in the nursery, were probably common in the seventeenth century. The two

just quoted have evidently an historical application. The manuscript

miscellanies of the time of James I. and Charles I. contain several

copies of literal rhymes not very unlike "A, B, C, tumble-down D." In

the reign of Charles II. political pasquinades constantly partook of

the genuine nursery character. We may select the following example, of

course put into the mouth of that sovereign, preserved in MS. Douce 357,

f. 124, in the Bodleian Library:



See-saw, sack-a-day;

Monmouth is a pretie boy,

Richmond is another,

Grafton is my onely joy,

And why should I these three destroy

To please a pious brother?



"What is the rhyme for porringer?" was written on occasion of the

marriage of Mary, the daughter of James Duke of York, afterwards James

II., with the young Prince of Orange: and the following alludes to

William III. and George Prince of Denmark:



William and Mary, George and Anne,

Four such children had never a man:

They put their father to flight and shame,

And call'd their brother a shocking bad name.



Another nursery song on King William is not yet obsolete, but its

application is not generally known. My authority is the title of it in

MS. Harl. 7316:



As I walk'd by myself,

And talked to myself,

Myself said unto me,

Look to thyself,

Take care of thyself,

For nobody cares for thee.



I answer'd myself,

And said to myself

In the self-same repartee,

Look to thyself,

Or not look to thyself,

The self-same thing will be.



To this class of rhymes I may add the following on Dr. Sacheverel,

which was obtained from oral tradition:



Doctor Sacheverel

Did very well,

But Jacky Dawbin

Gave him a warning.



When there are no allusions to guide us, it is only by accident that we

can hope to test the history and antiquity of these kind of scraps, but

we have no doubt whatever that many of them are centuries old. The

following has been traced to the time of Henry VI., a singular doggerel,

the joke of which consists in saying it so quickly that it cannot be

told whether it is English or gibberish:



In fir tar is,

In oak none is,

In mud eel is,

In clay none is,

Goat eat ivy,

Mare eat oats.



"Multiplication is vexation," a painful reality to schoolboys, was found

a few years ago in a manuscript dated 1570; and the memorial lines,

"Thirty days hath September," occur in the Return from Parnassus, an old

play printed in 1606. Our own reminiscences of such matters, and those

of Shakespeare, may thus have been identical! "To market, to market, to

buy a plum-bun," is partially quoted in Florio's New World of Words,

1611, in v. 'Abomba.' The old song of the "Carrion Crow sat on an Oak,"

was discovered by me in MS. Sloane 1489, of the time of Charles I., but

under a different form:



Hic, hoc, the carrion crow,

For I have shot something too low:

I have quite missed my mark,

And shot the poor sow to the heart;

Wife, bring treacle in a spoon,

Or else the poor sow's heart will down.



"Sing a song of sixpence" is quoted by Beaumont and Fletcher. "Buz,

quoth the blue fly," which is printed in the nursery halfpenny books,

belongs to Ben Jonson's Masque of Oberon; the old ditty of "Three Blind

Mice" is found in the curious music book entitled Deuteromelia, or the

Second Part of Musicke's Melodie, 1609; and the song, "When I was a

little girl, I wash'd my mammy's dishes," is given by Aubrey in MS.

Lansd. 231. "A swarm of bees in May," is quoted by Miege, 1687. And so

on of others, fragments of old catches and popular songs being

constantly traced in the apparently unmeaning rhymes of the nursery.



Most of us have heard in time past the school address to a story-teller:



Liar, liar, lick dish,

Turn about the candlestick.



Not very important lines, one would imagine, but they explain a passage

in Chettle's play of the Tragedy of Hoffman, or a Revenge for a Father,

4to. Lond, 1631, which would be partially inexplicable without such

assistance:



Lor. By heaven! it seemes hee did, but all was vaine;

The flinty rockes had cut his tender scull,

And the rough water wash't away his braine.

Luc. Lyer, lyer, licke dish!



The intention of the last speaker is sufficiently intelligible, but a

future editor, anxious to investigate his author minutely, might search

in vain for an explanation of licke dish. Another instance[8] of the

antiquity of children's rhymes I met with lately at Stratford-on-Avon,

in a MS. of the seventeenth century, in the collection of the late

Captain James Saunders, where, amongst common-place memoranda on more

serious subjects, written about the year 1630, occurred a version of

one of our most favorite nursery songs:



I had a little bonny nagg,

His name was Dapple Gray;

And he would bring me to an ale-house

A mile out of my way.



[Footnote 8: A dance called Hey, diddle,

diddle, is mentioned in the play of King

Cambises, written about 1561, and the several

rhymes commencing with the words may have been

original adaptations to that dance-tune.]



"Three children sliding on the ice" is founded on a metrical tale

published at the end of a translation of Ovid de Arte Amandi, 1662.[9]

The lines,



There was an old woman

Liv'd under a hill,

And if she ben't gone,

She lives there still--



[Footnote 9: See the whole poem in my Nursery

Rhymes of England, ed. 1842, p. 19.]



form part of an old catch, printed in the Academy of Complements, ed.

1714, p. 108. The same volume (p. 140) contains the original words to

another catch, which has been corrupted in its passage to the nursery:



There was an old man had three sons,

Had three sons, had three sons;

There was an old man had three sons,

Jeffery, James, and Jack.

Jeffery was hang'd and James was drown'd,

And Jack was lost, that he could not be found,

And the old man fell into a swoon,

For want of a cup of sack!



It is not improbable that Shakespeare, who has alluded so much and so

intricately to the vernacular rural literature of his day, has more

notices of nursery-rhymes and tales than research has hitherto elicited.

I am only acquainted with one reference to the former, "Pillicock sat on

Pillicock hill," which is quoted by Edgar in King Lear, iii. 4, and is

found in Gammer Gurton's Garland, and in most modern collections of

English nursery-rhymes. The secret meaning is not very delicate, nor is

it necessary to enter into any explanation on the subject. It may,

however, be worthy of remark, that the term pillicock is found in a

manuscript (Harl. 913) in the British Museum of the thirteenth century.



English children accompanied their amusements with trivial verses from a

very early period, but as it is only by accident that any allusions to

them have been made, it is difficult to sustain the fact by many

examples. The Nomenclator or Remembrancer of Adrianus Junius, translated

by Higins, and edited by Fleming, 8vo. 1585, contains a few notices of

this kind; p. 298, "{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, the playe called one penie, one

penie, come after me; {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~},

the play called selling of

peares, or how many plums for a penie; p. 299, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~},

a kinde of playe called



Clowt, clowt,

To beare about,



or my hen hath layd; {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}

{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}

, a kind of sport or play

with an oister shell or a stone throwne into the water, and making

circles yer it sinke, &c.; it is called,



A ducke and a drake,

And a halfe penie cake."



This last notice is particularly curious, for similar verses are used by

boys at the present day at the game of water-skimming. The amusement

itself is very ancient, and a description of it may be seen in Minucius

Felix, Lugd. Bat. 1652, p. 3. There cannot be a doubt but that many of

the inexplicable nonsense-rhymes of our nursery belonged to antique

recreations, but it is very seldom their original application can be

recovered. The well-known doggerel respecting the tailor of Bicester may

be mentioned as a remarkable instance of this, for it is one of the most

common nursery-rhymes of the present day, and Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231,

writing in the latter part of the seventeenth century, preserved it as

part of the formula of a game called leap-candle. "The young girls in

and about Oxford have a sport called Leap-Candle, for which they set a

candle in the middle of the room in a candlestick, and then draw up

their coats into the form of breaches, and dance over the candle back

and forth, with these words:



The tailor of Biciter,

He has but one eye,

He cannot cut a pair of green galagaskins,

If he were to die.



This sport in other parts is called Dancing the Candle Rush." It may be

necessary to observe that galagaskins were wide loose trousers.



The rhyme of Jack Horner has been stated to be a satire on the

Puritanical aversion to Christmas pies and suchlike abominations. It

forms part of a metrical chap-book history, founded on the same story as

the Friar and the Boy, entitled "The Pleasant History of Jack Horner,

containing his witty tricks, and pleasant pranks, which he played from

his youth to his riper years: right pleasant and delightful for winter

and summer's recreation," embellished with frightful woodcuts, which

have not much connexion with the tale. The pleasant history commences as

follows:



Jack Horner was a pretty lad,

Near London he did dwell,

His father's heart he made full glad,

His mother lov'd him well.

While little Jack was sweet and young,

If he by chance should cry,

His mother pretty sonnets sung,

With a lul-la-ba-by,

With such a dainty curious tone,

As Jack sat on her knee,

So that, e'er he could go alone,

He sung as well as she.

A pretty boy of curious wit,

All people spoke his praise,

And in the corner would he sit

In Christmas holydays.

When friends they did together meet,

To pass away the time--

Why, little Jack, he sure would eat

His Christmas pie in rhyme.

And said, Jack Horner, in the corner,

Eats good Christmas pie,

And with his thumbs pulls out the plumbs,

And said, Good boy am I!



Here we have an important discovery! Who before suspected that the

nursery-rhyme was written by Jack Horner himself?



Few children's rhymes are more common than those relating to Jack Sprat

and his wife, "Jack Sprat could eat no fat," &c.; but it is little

thought they have been current for two centuries. Such, however, is the

fact, and when Howell published his collection of Proverbs in 1659, p.

20, the story related to no less exalted a personage than an archdeacon:



Archdeacon Pratt would eat no fatt,

His wife would eat no lean;

'Twixt Archdeacon Pratt and Joan his wife,

The meat was eat up clean.



On the same page of this collection we find the commencement of the

rigmarole, "A man of words and not of deeds," which in the next century

was converted into a burlesque song on the battle of Culloden![10]



Double Dee Double Day,

Set a garden full of seeds;

When the seeds began to grow,

It's like a garden full of snow.

When the snow began to melt,

Like a ship without a belt.

When the ship began to sail,

Like a bird without a tail.

When the bird began to fly,

Like an eagle in the sky.

When the sky began to roar,

Like a lion at the door.

When the door began to crack,

Like a stick laid o'er my back.

When my back began to smart,

Like a penknife in my heart.

When my heart began to bleed,

Like a needleful of thread.

When the thread began to rot,

Like a turnip in the pot.

When the pot began to boil,

Like a bottle full of oil.

When the oil began to settle,

Like our Geordies bloody battle.



[Footnote 10: The following nursery game, played

by two girls, one personating the mistress and

the other a servant, was obtained from Yorkshire,

and may be interpreted as a dialogue between a

lady and her Jacobite maid:



Lady. Jenny, come here! So I hear you have

been to see that man.

Maid. What man, madam?

Lady. Why, the handsome man.

Maid. Why, madam, as I was a-passing by,

Thinking no harm, no not in the least, not I,

I did go in,

But had no ill intention in the thing,

For, as folks say, a cat may look at a king.

Lady. A king do you call him? You rebellious slut!

Maid. I did not call him so, dear lady, but--

Lady. But me none of your buttings, for not another day

Shall any rebel in my service stay;

I owe you twenty shillings--there's a guinea!

Go, pack your clothes, and get about your business,

Jenny.]



The earliest copy of the saying, "A man of words and not of deeds," I

have hitherto met with, occurs in MS. Harl. 1927, of the time of James

I. Another version, written towards the close of the seventeenth

century, but unfitted for publication, is preserved on the last leaf of

MS. Harl. 6580.



Many of the metrical nonsense-riddles of the nursery are of considerable

antiquity. A collection of conundrums formed early in the seventeenth

century by Randle Holmes, the Chester antiquary, and now preserved in

MS. Harl. 1962, contains several which have been traditionally

remembered up to the present day. Thus we find versions of "Little Nancy

Etticoat in a white petticoat," "Two legs sat upon three legs," "As

round as an apple," and others.[11]



[Footnote 11: A vast number of these kind of

rhymes have become obsolete, and old manuscripts

contain many not very intelligible. Take the

following as a specimen:



Ruste duste tarbotell,

Bagpipelorum hybattell.--MS. Harl. 7332, xvij. cent.]



During the latter portion of the seventeenth century numerous songs and

games were introduced which were long remembered in the English nursery.

"Questions and Commands" was a common game, played under various systems

of representation. One boy would enact king, and the subjects would give

burlesque answers, e. g.:



K. King I am!

S. I am your man.

K. What service will you do?

S. The best and worst, and all I can!



A clever writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1738, says this was

played during the Commonwealth in ridicule of sovereignty! He humorously

adds, continually quoting games then current: "During all Oliver's time,

the chief diversion was, 'The parson hath lost his fuddling-cap,' which

needs no explanation. At the Restoration succeeded love-games, as 'I

love my love with an A,' a 'Flower and a lady,' and 'I am a lusty

wooer;' changed in the latter end of this reign, as well as all King

James II.'s, to 'I am come to torment you.' At the Revolution, when all

people recovered their liberty, the children played promiscuously at

what game they liked best. The most favorite one, however, was 'Puss in

the corner.'" The same writer also mentions the game of "I am a Spanish

merchant."



The following nursery-rhyme is quoted in Parkin's Reply to Dr.

Stukeley's second number of the Origines Roystonianae, 4to. 1748, p. 6,

but I am not aware that it is still current:--



Peter White will ne'er go right,

And would you know the reason why?

He follows his nose where'er he goes,

And that stands all awry.



The tale of "Old Mother Hubbard" is undoubtedly of some antiquity, were

we merely to judge of the rhyme of laughing to coffin in the third

verse.[12] "There was an old woman toss'd up in a blanket" is supposed

to be the original song of "Lilliburlero, or Old Woman, whither so

high?" the tune to which was published in 1678.[13] "Come, drink old ale

with me," a nursery catch, with an improper meaning now lost, is found

in MS. Harl. 7332, of the seventeenth century. "Round about, round

about, magotty-pie," is probably as old, magot-pie being an obsolete

term for a magpie. For a similar reason, the antiquity of "Here am I,

little Jumping Joan," may be inferred. Jumping Joan was the Cant term

for a lady of little reputation.[14] The well-known riddle, "As I was

going to St. Ives," occurs in MS. Harl. 7316, of the early part of the

last century; and the following extract from Poor Robin's Almanack for

1693, may furnish us with the original of the celebrated ballad on Tom

of Islington, though the latter buried his troublesome wife on Sunday:

"How one saw a lady on the Saturday, married her on the Sunday, she was

brought to bed on the Monday, the child christened on the Tuesday, it

died on the Wednesday, was buried on the Thursday, the bride's portion

was paid on the Friday, and the bridegroom ran clear away on the

Saturday!"



[Footnote 12: The first three verses are all the

original. The rest is modern, and was added when

Mother Hubbard was the first of a series of

eighteen-penny books published by Harris.]



[Footnote 13: Chappell's National Airs, p. 89.]



[Footnote 14: Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Dyce,

viii. 176. The tune of Jumping Joan is mentioned

in MS. Harl. 7316, p. 67.]



The antiquity of a rhyme is not unfrequently determined by the use of

an obsolete expression. Thus it may be safely concluded that the common

nursery address to the white moth is no modern composition, from the use

of the term dustipoll, a very old nickname for a miller, which has

long fallen into disuse:



Millery, millery, dustipoll,

How many sacks have you stole?

Four and twenty and a peck:

Hang the miller up by his neck!



The expression is used by Robin Goodfellow in the old play of Grim, the

Collier of Croydon, first printed in 1662, but written considerably

before that period:



Now, miller, miller, dustipole,

I'll clapper-claw your jobbernole![15]



[Footnote 15: "Oh, madam, I will give you the

keys of Canterbury," must be a very ancient song,

as it mentions chopines, or high cork shoes, and

appears, from another passage, to have been

written before the invention of bell-pulls. The

obsolete term delve, to dig, exhibits the

antiquity of the rhyme "One, two, buckle my

shoe." Minikin occurs in a rhyme printed in the

Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 145; coif, ibid.

p. 150; snaps, small fragments, ibid. p. 190;

moppet, a little pet, ibid. p. 193, &c.]



A very curious ballad, written about the year 1720, in the possession of

Mr. Crofton Croker, establishes the antiquity of the rhymes of

"Jack-a-Dandy," "Boys and girls come out to play," "Tom Tidler's on the

Friar's ground," "London bridge is broken down," "Who comes here, a

grenadier," and "See, saw, sacradown," besides mentioning others we have

before alluded to. The ballad is entitled, "Namby Pamby, or a Panegyric

on the New Versification, addressed to A. F., Esq."



Nanty Panty, Jack-a-Dandy,

Stole a piece of sugar-candy,

From the grocer's shoppy shop,

And away did hoppy hop.



In the course of the ballad, the writer thus introduces the titles of

the nursery rhymes,--



Namby Pamby's double mild,

Once a man, and twice a child;

To his hanging sleeves restor'd,

Now he fools it like a lord;

Now he pumps his little wits

All by little tiny bits.

Now, methinks, I hear him say,

Boys and girls, come out to play,

Moon do's shine as bright as day:

Now my Namby Pamby's[16] found

Sitting on the Friar's ground,

Picking silver, picking gold,--

Namby Pamby's never old:

Bally-cally they begin,

Namby Pamby still keeps in.

Namby Pamby is no clown--

London Bridge is broken down;

Now he courts the gay ladee,

Dancing o'er the Lady Lee:

Now he sings of Lickspit Liar,

Burning in the brimstone fire;

Lyar, lyar, Lickspit, lick,

Turn about the candlestick.

Now he sings of Jacky Horner,

Sitting in the chimney corner,

Eating of a Christmas pie,

Putting in his thumb, oh! fie!

Putting in, oh! fie, his thumb,

Pulling out, oh! strange, a plumb!

Now he acts the grenadier,

Calling for a pot of beer:

Where's his money? He's forgot--

Get him gone, a drunken sot!

Now on cock-horse does he ride,

And anon on timber stride,

Se and saw, and sack'ry down,

London is a gallant town!



[Footnote 16: Namby Pamby is said to have been a

nickname for Ambrose Phillips. Another ballad,

written about the same time as the above, alludes

to the rhyme of "Goosy Goosy, Gander."]



This ballad is a very important illustration of the history of these

puerile rhymes, for it establishes the fact that some we might aptly

consider modern are at least more than a century old; and who would have

thought such nonsense as,



Who comes here?

A grenadier!

What do you want?

A pot of beer!

Where's your money?

I've forgot!

Get you gone,

You drunken sot!



could have descended in all its purity for several generations, even

although it really may have a deep meaning and an unexceptionable moral?



Having thus, I trust, shown that the nursery has an archaeology, the

study of which may eventually lead to important results, the jingles and

songs of our childhood are defended from the imputation of exclusive

frivolity. We may hope that, henceforth, those who have the opportunity

will not consider it a derogatory task to add to these memorials. But

they must hasten to the rescue. The antiquities of the people are

rapidly disappearing before the spread of education; and before many

years have elapsed, they will be lost, or recorded only in the

collections of the antiquary, perhaps requiring evidence that they ever

existed. This is the latest period at which there is a chance of our

arresting their disappearance. If, unfortunately, the most valuable

relics of this kind are wholly lost, many, doubtlessly, remain in the

remote districts sufficiently curious to reward the collector; and it is

to be hoped they will not be allowed to share the fate of Wade and his

boat Guingelot.



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