Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales Part 3

[Footnote 10: The following nursery game, played by two girls, one personating the mistress and the other a servant, was obtained from Yorks.h.i.+re, 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-pa.s.sing 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 s.l.u.t!

_Maid._ I did not call him so, dear lady, but- _Lady._ But me none of your b.u.t.tings, for not another day Shall any rebel in my service stay; I owe you twenty s.h.i.+llings-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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 l.u.s.ty 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 Sat.u.r.day!"

[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 pa.s.sage, 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 ent.i.tled, "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 t.i.tles 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 c.o.c.k-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 ill.u.s.tration 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.

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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sociation; 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 a.s.sociations, 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 pa.s.sed away like a dream. They now serve only "to mellow our occasions," like that "old and antique song" which relieved the pa.s.sion 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.]