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! *

* 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.

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.

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.*

During the latter portion of the seventeenth century numerous songs and games were introduced which were long remembered in the English nursery. 66 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 :—

⚫ 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.

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.*"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.+ "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. The wellknown 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 christned 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!"

The antiquity of a rhyme is not unfrequently deter

* 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.

+ Chappell's National Airs, p. 89.

Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Dyce, viii. 176. The tune of Jumping Joan is mentioned in MS. Harl. 7316, p. 67.

mined 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 !*

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;

*“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 bellpulls. 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.