Part 2

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. 'Abómba.' 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, "βασιλινδα, the playe called one penie, one penie, come after me; χυτρινδα, the play called selling of peares, or how many plums for a penie; p. 299, χοινοφιλινδα, a kinde of playe called

Clowt, clowt, To beare about,

or my hen hath layd; ιποστρακισμος, 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 Roystonianæ, 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 archæology, 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.

II.—FIRESIDE NURSERY STORIES.

The efforts of modern romance are so greatly superior to the best fictions of a former age, that old wives' tales are not so readily tolerated as they were in times past. We question whether any one in these days, save a very grave antiquary, could read two chapters of the Morte Arthure without a yawn. Let us, then, turn to that simpler class of narratives which bears the same relation to novels that rural ballads do to the poem; and ascertain whether the wild interest which, in the primitive tales erewhile taught by nurse, first awakened our imagination, can be so reflected as to render their resuscitation agreeable. We rely a good deal for the success of the experiment on the power of association; for though these inventions may, in their character, be suited to the dawn of intellect, they not infrequently bear the impress of creative fancy, and their imperceptible influence over the mind does not always evaporate at a later age.

Few persons, indeed, there are, even amongst those who affect to be insignificantly touched by the imagination, who can be recalled to the stories and carols that charmed them in their childhood wholly without emotion. An affectation of indifference in such matters is, of course, not unusual, for most thoughts springing from early associations, and those on which so many minds love to dwell, may not be indiscriminately divulged. It is impossible they should be generally appreciated or understood. Most of us, however, are liable to be occasionally touched by allusions breathing of happy days, bearing our memories downward to behold the shadows of joys that have long passed away like a dream. They now serve only "to mellow our occasions," like that "old and antique song" which relieved the passion of the Duke Orsino.

TEENY-TINY.

[This simple tale seldom fails to rivet the attention of children, especially if well told. The last two words should be said loudly with a start. It was obtained from oral tradition, and has not, I believe, been printed.]

Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village. Now, one day this teeny-tiny woman put on her teeny-tiny bonnet, and went out of her teeny-tiny house to take a teeny-tiny walk. And when this teeny-tiny woman had gone a teeny-tiny way, she came to a teeny-tiny gate; so the teeny-tiny woman opened the teeny-tiny gate, and went into a teeny-tiny churchyard. And when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard, she saw a teeny-tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, "This teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper." So the teeny-tiny woman put the teeny-tiny bone into her teeny-tiny pocket, and went home to her teeny-tiny house.