National Rhymes of the Nurseryi001"Ride a cock horse."—Page 70.i002National Rhymes of the NurseryWith Introduction ByGeorge SaintsburyAnd Drawings ByGordon BrowneLondonWells, Gardner, Darton & Co.Paternoster Buildings, E.c.i003i004INTRODUCTIONIt is a good many years since Peacock, in one of those curiously ill-tempered and not particularly happy attacks on the Lake poets, with which he chose to diversify his earlier novels, conceived, as an ornament of "Mainchance Villa," a grand allegorical picture, depicting the most famous characters of English Nursery Tales, Rhymes, &c.—Margery Daw, Jack and Jill, the other Jack who built the House, the chief figures of "that sublime strain of immortal genius" calledDickory Dock, and the third Jack, Horner, eating a symbolic Christmas pie. At the date ofMelincourt, in which this occurs, its even then admirable author was apt to shoot his arrows rather at a venture; and it may be hoped, without too much rashness, that he did not mean to speak disrespectfully of the "sublime strain of immortal genius" itself, but only of what he thought Wordsworth's corrupt following of that and similar things.Nevertheless, if he had lived a little longer, or if (for he lived quite long enough) he had been in the mind for such game, he might have found fresh varieties of it in certain more modern handlings of the samesubject. Since the Brothers Grimm founded modern folklore, it has required considerable courage to approach nursery songs and nursery tales in any but a spirit of the severest "scientism," which I presume to be the proper form for the method of those who call themselves "scientists." We have not only had investigations—some of them by no means unfruitful or uninteresting investigations—into certain things which are, or may be, the originals of these artless compositions in history or in popular manners. We have not only had some of their queer verbal jingles twisted back again into what may have been an articulate and authentic meaning. I do not know that many of them have been made out to be sun-myths; but that yesterday popular, to-day rather discredited, system of exposition is very evidently as applicable to them as to anything else. The older variety of mystical and moral interpretation having gone out of fashion before they had emerged from the contempt of the learned, it has not been much applied to them, though the temptation is great, for, as King Charles observes in "Woodstock," most things in the world remind one of the tales of Mother Goose.But the most special attentions that nursery rhymes have received have, perhaps, taken the form of the elaborate and ingenious divisions attempted by Halliwell and others. Indeed, something of the kind has been so common that the absence here of anything similar may excite some surprise, and look like disrespect to a scientific age. The omission, however, is designed, and a reason or two may be rendered for it. Halliwell (to take the most generally known instance) has no less than seventeen compartments in which he stows remorselessly these "things that are old and pretty," to apply to them a phrase that Lamb loved. There are, it seems, historical nursery rhymes, literal nursery rhymes; nursery rhymes narrative, proverbial, scholastic, lyrical, riddlesome;rhymes dealing with charms, with gaffers and gammers, with games, with paradoxes, with lullabies, with jingles, with love and matrimony, with natural (I wish he had called it unnatural) history, with accumulative stories, with localities, with relics. It may be permitted to cry "Mercy on us," when one thinks of the poor little wildings, so full of nature and, if not ignorant of art, of an art so cunningly concealed, being subjected to the trimmings and torturings of theArs Topiariaafter this fashion. The division is clearly arbitrary and non-natural; it is often what logicians very properly object to as a "cross"-division; it leads to the inclusion of many things which are not properly nursery rhymes at all; and it necessitates, or at least gives occasion to, a vast amount of idle talk. For instance, take King Arthur, this way, that way, which way you please: as a hero of history, as a great central figure of romance, or even (I grieve to say a learned friend of mine is wont to speak of him so) as a "West-Welsh thief." Are we called upon in the very slightest degree to connect any of these Arthurs with the artist of the bag-pudding? to discuss what was the material that Queen Guinevere preferred for frying, and to select the most probable "noblemen" from the Table Round? Does anybody, except as a rather ponderous joke, care to discuss whether King Cole was really father of Constantine's mother, and had anything to do with Colchester? Though it may be admitted that a "Colchester carpet-bag," that is to say, a very thick steak all but sliced through and stuffed with oysters, would probably not have been unacceptable to the monarch as a preliminary to the bowl.The simple fact seems to be, that one of Halliwell's partitions—"jingles"—will do for the whole seventeen, and do a great deal better than the other sixteen of them. It may be perfectly true that most of the things indicated in these class-names supplied, in this case and that, basis for the jingle, starting-points, texts, and soforth. But all genuine nursery rhymes (even in fragments such as "Martin Swart and his men, Sodledum [saddle them], sodledum," if it is genuine, and others where definite history comes in) have never become nursery rhymes until the historical fact has been practically forgotten by those who used them, and nothing but the metrical and musical attraction remains. Some of the alphabet and number rhymes may possibly (it is sad to have to confess it) have been composed with a deliberate purpose of instruction; but it is noticeable that these have never become quite the genuine thing, except in cases such as—"Big A, little a, bouncing B,The cat's in the cupboard, and she can't see,"where the subtle tendency to nonsense takes the weak intention of sense on its back as a fox does a chicken and runs right away with it. Again, it would be rash to say that it is impossible to make out popular customs and popular beliefs from these texts. But it is quite certain that they have for the most part left the customs and the beliefs a long way behind them, that these things are, to vary the metaphor, merely in palimpsest relation to the present purport and contents of the rhymes.Perhaps, therefore, while not grudging folklorists their perquisitions in this delightful region, and while acknowledging that there are many interesting things to be found out by them in it, we may be permitted to look at nursery rhymes from a rather different point of view. And from this point it will not, I think, be fanciful to see in them, to a great extent, the poetical appeal of sound as opposed to that of meaning expressed in its simplest and most unmistakable terms. We shall find in these pieces the two special pillars of all modern poetry, alliteration and rhyme, or at least assonance, which is only rhyme undeveloped. And we shall find something else, which I venture to callthe attraction of the inarticulate. It is not necessary to take the cynical sense of the famous saying, that language was given to man to conceal his thoughts, in order to admit that in moments of more intense and genuine feeling, if not of thought, he does not as a rule use or at least confine himself to articulate speech. If the "little language" of mothers to babies be set down to a supposition that the object addressed does not understand, that will hardly explain the other "little language" of lovers to lovers, which has a tendency to be nearly as inarticulate as a cradle-song, and quite as corruptive of dictionary speech as a nursery rhyme. In the very stammering of rage there may be thought to be something more than a simple inability to choose between words; and in the moaning of sorrow something more than an inability to find suitable expression. All children—and children, as somebody (I forget who he was, but he was a wise man) has said, are usually very clever people till they get spoilt—fall naturally, long after they are quite able to express themselves as it is called rationally, into a sort of pleasant gibberish when they are alone and pleased, or even displeased. And I dare say that a fair number of very considerably grown-up folk, who have not only come to the legal years of discretion but to the poetical age of wisdom, do the like now and then."As one walks by oneself,And talks to oneself,"by the seaside or on a lonely country road, it must be a not infrequent experience of most people that one frequently falls into pure jingle and nonsense-verse of the nursery kind. In fact, it must have happened to more people than one, or one thousand, by the malice of a sudden corner or the like, to have been caught doing so to their great confusion, and to the comfortable convictionof the other party that he has met with an escaped lunatic.I should myself, though I may not carry many people with me, go farther than this and say that this "attraction of the inarticulate," this allurement of mere sound and sequence, has a great deal more to do than is generally thought with the charm of the very highest poetry, and that no merely valuable thought presented without this accompaniment can possibly affect us as it does when it summons to its aid such concert of vowels and consonants as—"Peace! peace!Dost thou not see my baby at my breastThat sucks the nurse asleep?"or as—"Quærens me sedisti lassus,Redemisti crucem passus;Tantus labor non sit cassus!"In the best nursery rhymes, as in the simpler and more genuine ballads which have so close a connection with them, we find this attraction of the inarticulate—this charm of pure sound, this utilising of alliteration and rhyme and assonance, and the cunning juxtaposition now of similar, now of contrary vowels—not in a passionate, but in a frank and simple form. Many of them probably, some of them certainly, had, as has been said, a definite meaning once, and we may attend to the folklorist as he expounds what it was or may have been; but for the most part they have very victoriously got the better of that meaning, have bid it, in their own lingo, "go to Spain," without the slightest meditation or back-thought whether Spain is the proper place for it or not. In that particularlocus classicus"Spain" rhymes to "rain," and that is not merely the chief and principal, but the absolutely all-sufficient thing.So, too, there is no doubt a most learned explanation of the jargon (variously given and spelt)—"Hotum-potum, paradise tantum, perry-merry-dictum, domaree,"at which a friend of mine used to laugh consumedly, declaring that this cavalier coupling of "paradisetantum" "onlyparadise," was the nicest thing he knew. But the people who mellowed it into that form, and recited it afterwards, never cared one scrap for the meaning. They had got it into a pleasant jingle of vowels, a desirable sequence of consonants, and a good swing of cadence, and that was enough. When "Curlylocks" is invited to be "mine" by the promise "thou shalt sew a fine seam," does anybody suppose that this housewifely operation was much more (it may have been a little more) of a bait to the Curlylocks of those days than to the Curlylocks of these? Not at all. "Sew" and "seam" went naturally together, they made a pleasing alliteration, and the latter word rhymed to "cream," of which the Curlylocks of all days has been not unusually fond.Not, of course, that there is not much wit and much wisdom, much picturesqueness and not a little pathos in our rhymes. All good men have justly admired these qualities in "Sing a Song of Sixpence" and "Ding-dong Bell," in "Margery Daw" and "Who Killed Cock Robin?" I rather suspect the wicked literary man of having more to do than genuine popular sentiment with the delightful progress and ending of "There was a Little Boy and a Little Girl." But the undoubtedly genuine notes are numerous enough and various enough, from that previously mentioned and admirable thrift of good King Arthur, or rather of Queen Guinevere (from whom, according to naughty romancers, we should have less expected it), to the sound common-sense of "Three Children;" fromthe decorative convention of "Little Boy Blue" to the arabesque and even grotesque of "Hey-diddle-diddle."But I shall still contend that the main, the pervading, the characteristic attraction of them lies in their musical accompaniment of purely senseless sound, in their rhythm, rhyme, jingle, refrain, and the like, in the simplicity and freshness of their modulated form. For thus they serve as anthems and doxologies to the goddess whom in this context it is not satirical to call "DivineNonsensia," who still in all lands and times condescends now and then to unbind the burden of meaning from the backs and brains of men, and lets them rejoice once more in pure, natural, senseless sound.George Saintsbury.i005i006INDEX TO FIRST LINESPAGEA carrion crow sat on an oak51A diller, a dollar10A farmer went trotting upon his grey mare230frog he would a-wooing go191A gentleman of good account128A little cock sparrow sat on a green tree75A long-tailed pig, and a short-tailed pig274A man of words and not of deeds62An apple pie, when it looks nice256A nick and a nock330An old woman was sweeping her house282A pie sate on a pear-tree204Around the green gravel the grass grows green266As I walked by myself290As I was a-going by a little pig-sty302As I was going o'er Westminster Bridge289As I was going to sell my eggs229As I was going to St. Ives48As I was going up Pippen Hill277As little Jenny Wren267As soft as silk, as white as milk144A swarm of bees in May79A was an apple-pie108A was an archer, and shot at a frog79Baa, baa, black sheep87Barber, barber, shave a pig145Bat, bat109Bessy Bell and Mary Gray106Billy, Billy, come and play179Bless you, bless you, burny-bee270Blow, wind, blow! and go, mill, go307Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea246Bow, wow, says the dog135Bryan O'Lin, and his wife, and wife's mother294Bryan O'Lin had no breeches to wear146Buttons a farthing a pair267Bye, baby bunting296Charley, Charley, stole the barley76Cherries are ripe333Cock a doodle doo182Cold and raw the north wind doth blow294Come, let's to bed63Come, take up your hats, and away let us haste237"Croak!" said the toad, "I'm hungry, I think"67Cross patch220Curly locks! curly locks! wilt thou be mine?28Cushy cow bonny51Cut them on Monday333Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town75Dame Trot and her cat313Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John176Diddle-y-diddle-y-dumpty241Ding, dong bell297Dingty, diddledy, my mammy's maid326Doctor Faustus was a good man205Doctor Foster went to Glo'ster47Early to bed, and early to rise114Elizabeth, Eliza, Betsy, and Bess213Elsie Marley is grown so fine26For every evil under the sun58For want of a nail, the shoe was lost246Four and twenty tailors went to kill a snail298Gay go up and gay go down19Girls and boys, come out to play61God bless the master of this house224Good people all, of every sort214Goosey, goosey, gander198Great A, little A330Handy-Spandy, Jack-a-dandy46Hark, hark71Have you seen the old woman of Banbury Cross34He loves me321Hector Protector was dressed all in green122Here a little child I stand334Here comes a poor widow from Babylon312Here's Sulky Sue276He that would thrive255Hey! diddle, diddle86Hey ding-a-ding254Hey, my kitten, my kitten278Hickety, pickety, my black hen232Hickory, Dickory, Dock190Higgledy piggledy16Hot-cross Buns!252How do you do, neighbour?313How many miles is it to Babylon?27Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall23Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top96Hushy baby, my doll, I pray you don't cry181I am a gold lock3I do not like thee, Doctor Fell325If all the world were water223If I'd as much money as I could spend63I had a little castle326I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen180I had a little husband235I had a little moppet265I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear256I had a little pony241I had four brothers over the sea30I have seen you, little mouse144I like little pussy, her coat is so warm38I'll tell you a story85I love my love with an A, because he's agreeable12I love you well, my little brother231In Egypt was a dragon dire140In marble walls as white as milk223I saw a ship a-sailing125I saw three ships come sailing by259Is John Smith within?123I will sing you a song219Jack and Jill went up the hill93Jack Jingle went 'prentice253Jack Sprat274Jack Sprat could eat no fat53Jack Sprat's pig106Jacky, come give me my fiddle248January brings the snow295Jenny Wren fell sick303Jocky was a piper's son167John Cook had a little grey mare; he, haw, hum!9John Gilpin was a citizen150Johnny Pringle had a little pig251Johnny shall have a new bonnet124Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home180Lavender blue and rosemary green278"Let us go to the woods," says Richard to Robin188"Let us go to the wood," says this pig54Little Betty Blue329Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep64Little Bob Snooks was fond of his books94Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn48Little Jack Horner134Little Miss Muffet41Little Nancy Etticoat255Little Polly Flinders261Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree15Little Tommy Tittlemouse16Little Tom Tucker69London Bridge is broken down24Lucy Locket317Mary had a pretty bird147Mary, Mary, quite contrary168Master I have, and I am his man94Merry are the bells, and merry would they ring83Monday alone289Monday's bairn is fair of face216Multiplication is vexation212My father he died, but I can't tell you how56My lady Wind, my lady Wind5Needles and pins, needles and pins107Nose, nose, jolly red nose126Now what do you think245Oh, what have you got for dinner?314Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!260Old King Cole1Old Mother Goose110Old Mother Hubbard118On Christmas Eve I turned the spit212One, he loves18One misty moisty morning55One old Oxford ox opening oysters37One, two, buckle my shoe166One, two, three, four, five261Over the water, and over the lea72Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man!36Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold83Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper22Please to remember11Polly, put the kettle on281Poor old Robinson Crusoe!99Punch and Judy219Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?176Pussy sits beside the fire293Queen Anne, Queen Anne, you sit in the sun99Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit Pie!36Rain, rain, go away105Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross70Ride away, ride away, Johnny shall ride84Robert Barnes, fellow fine209Robin-a-Bobbin bent his bow222Robin the Bobbin, the big bouncing Ben199Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green199Rub-a-dub-dub247Says A, Give me a good large slice262See, Saw, Margery Daw242See-saw, sacaradown121Simple Simon met a pieman270Sing a song of sixpence115Six little mice sat down to spin167Snail, snail, come out of your hole229Solomon Grundy86St. Swithin's day, if thou dost rain15Sukey, you shall be my wife304Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief91Tell-Tale-Tit136The cock's on the housetop324The cuckoo's a fine bird54The Dog will come when he is called224The dove says coo, coo, what shall I do?34The fox and his wife they had a great strife206The girl in the lane, that couldn't speak plain147The Hart he loves the high wood265The King of France went up the hill126The lion and the unicorn4The man in the moon263The man in the wilderness asked me37The north wind doth blow269The Queen of Hearts136The rose is red, the violet blue270There once were two cats321There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile171There was a jolly miller171There was a jovial beggar243There was a lady loved a swine221There was a little boy and a little girl27There was a little boy went into a barn281There was a little Guinea-pig40There was a little man292There was a little man, and he had a little gun143There was a little woman, as I've been told266There was a man, and he had naught95There was a man of Newington39There was a monkey climb'd up a tree7There was a piper had a cow168There was an old woman, and what do you think?77There was an old woman, as I've heard tell12There was an old woman called Nothing-at-all247There was an old woman had three sons183There was an old woman lived under a hill232There was an old woman tossed up in a basket88There was an old woman who lived in a shoe216There were three jovial Welshmen264There were two blackbirds70There's a neat little clock220Thirty days hath September3This is the death of little Jenny Wren308This is the house that Jack built42This is the way the ladies ride92This little pig went to market108Three blind mice, see how they run!268Three children sliding on the ice22Three little kittens322Three wise men of Gotham302Tinker, tailor319Tit, tat, toe288To market, to market, to buy a plum bun122Tom, Tom, the piper's son73Tom, Tom, the piper's son200Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee275Twinkle, twinkle, little star210Two legs sat upon three legs32Two little kittens, one stormy night299Up hill and down dale78Upon St. Paul's steeple330Wash me and comb me236We are three brethren out of Spain148Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town266What are little boys made of, made of?301What is the news of the day?298When a Twister a twisting, will twist him a twist68When good King Arthur ruled this land6When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself197When I was a little boy232When little Fred114When the wind is in the east184"Where are you going, my pretty maid?"96Where have you been all the day?59Where should a baby rest?187Who killed Cock Robin?172Willy boy, Willy boy, where are you going?254"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the spider to the fly100Yankee Doodle went to town274Yet didn't you see, yet didn't you see251Young Lambs to sell!248
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"Ride a cock horse."—Page 70.
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National Rhymes of the NurseryWith Introduction ByGeorge SaintsburyAnd Drawings ByGordon BrowneLondonWells, Gardner, Darton & Co.Paternoster Buildings, E.c.
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i004
INTRODUCTION
It is a good many years since Peacock, in one of those curiously ill-tempered and not particularly happy attacks on the Lake poets, with which he chose to diversify his earlier novels, conceived, as an ornament of "Mainchance Villa," a grand allegorical picture, depicting the most famous characters of English Nursery Tales, Rhymes, &c.—Margery Daw, Jack and Jill, the other Jack who built the House, the chief figures of "that sublime strain of immortal genius" calledDickory Dock, and the third Jack, Horner, eating a symbolic Christmas pie. At the date ofMelincourt, in which this occurs, its even then admirable author was apt to shoot his arrows rather at a venture; and it may be hoped, without too much rashness, that he did not mean to speak disrespectfully of the "sublime strain of immortal genius" itself, but only of what he thought Wordsworth's corrupt following of that and similar things.
Nevertheless, if he had lived a little longer, or if (for he lived quite long enough) he had been in the mind for such game, he might have found fresh varieties of it in certain more modern handlings of the samesubject. Since the Brothers Grimm founded modern folklore, it has required considerable courage to approach nursery songs and nursery tales in any but a spirit of the severest "scientism," which I presume to be the proper form for the method of those who call themselves "scientists." We have not only had investigations—some of them by no means unfruitful or uninteresting investigations—into certain things which are, or may be, the originals of these artless compositions in history or in popular manners. We have not only had some of their queer verbal jingles twisted back again into what may have been an articulate and authentic meaning. I do not know that many of them have been made out to be sun-myths; but that yesterday popular, to-day rather discredited, system of exposition is very evidently as applicable to them as to anything else. The older variety of mystical and moral interpretation having gone out of fashion before they had emerged from the contempt of the learned, it has not been much applied to them, though the temptation is great, for, as King Charles observes in "Woodstock," most things in the world remind one of the tales of Mother Goose.
But the most special attentions that nursery rhymes have received have, perhaps, taken the form of the elaborate and ingenious divisions attempted by Halliwell and others. Indeed, something of the kind has been so common that the absence here of anything similar may excite some surprise, and look like disrespect to a scientific age. The omission, however, is designed, and a reason or two may be rendered for it. Halliwell (to take the most generally known instance) has no less than seventeen compartments in which he stows remorselessly these "things that are old and pretty," to apply to them a phrase that Lamb loved. There are, it seems, historical nursery rhymes, literal nursery rhymes; nursery rhymes narrative, proverbial, scholastic, lyrical, riddlesome;rhymes dealing with charms, with gaffers and gammers, with games, with paradoxes, with lullabies, with jingles, with love and matrimony, with natural (I wish he had called it unnatural) history, with accumulative stories, with localities, with relics. It may be permitted to cry "Mercy on us," when one thinks of the poor little wildings, so full of nature and, if not ignorant of art, of an art so cunningly concealed, being subjected to the trimmings and torturings of theArs Topiariaafter this fashion. The division is clearly arbitrary and non-natural; it is often what logicians very properly object to as a "cross"-division; it leads to the inclusion of many things which are not properly nursery rhymes at all; and it necessitates, or at least gives occasion to, a vast amount of idle talk. For instance, take King Arthur, this way, that way, which way you please: as a hero of history, as a great central figure of romance, or even (I grieve to say a learned friend of mine is wont to speak of him so) as a "West-Welsh thief." Are we called upon in the very slightest degree to connect any of these Arthurs with the artist of the bag-pudding? to discuss what was the material that Queen Guinevere preferred for frying, and to select the most probable "noblemen" from the Table Round? Does anybody, except as a rather ponderous joke, care to discuss whether King Cole was really father of Constantine's mother, and had anything to do with Colchester? Though it may be admitted that a "Colchester carpet-bag," that is to say, a very thick steak all but sliced through and stuffed with oysters, would probably not have been unacceptable to the monarch as a preliminary to the bowl.
The simple fact seems to be, that one of Halliwell's partitions—"jingles"—will do for the whole seventeen, and do a great deal better than the other sixteen of them. It may be perfectly true that most of the things indicated in these class-names supplied, in this case and that, basis for the jingle, starting-points, texts, and soforth. But all genuine nursery rhymes (even in fragments such as "Martin Swart and his men, Sodledum [saddle them], sodledum," if it is genuine, and others where definite history comes in) have never become nursery rhymes until the historical fact has been practically forgotten by those who used them, and nothing but the metrical and musical attraction remains. Some of the alphabet and number rhymes may possibly (it is sad to have to confess it) have been composed with a deliberate purpose of instruction; but it is noticeable that these have never become quite the genuine thing, except in cases such as—
"Big A, little a, bouncing B,The cat's in the cupboard, and she can't see,"
where the subtle tendency to nonsense takes the weak intention of sense on its back as a fox does a chicken and runs right away with it. Again, it would be rash to say that it is impossible to make out popular customs and popular beliefs from these texts. But it is quite certain that they have for the most part left the customs and the beliefs a long way behind them, that these things are, to vary the metaphor, merely in palimpsest relation to the present purport and contents of the rhymes.
Perhaps, therefore, while not grudging folklorists their perquisitions in this delightful region, and while acknowledging that there are many interesting things to be found out by them in it, we may be permitted to look at nursery rhymes from a rather different point of view. And from this point it will not, I think, be fanciful to see in them, to a great extent, the poetical appeal of sound as opposed to that of meaning expressed in its simplest and most unmistakable terms. We shall find in these pieces the two special pillars of all modern poetry, alliteration and rhyme, or at least assonance, which is only rhyme undeveloped. And we shall find something else, which I venture to callthe attraction of the inarticulate. It is not necessary to take the cynical sense of the famous saying, that language was given to man to conceal his thoughts, in order to admit that in moments of more intense and genuine feeling, if not of thought, he does not as a rule use or at least confine himself to articulate speech. If the "little language" of mothers to babies be set down to a supposition that the object addressed does not understand, that will hardly explain the other "little language" of lovers to lovers, which has a tendency to be nearly as inarticulate as a cradle-song, and quite as corruptive of dictionary speech as a nursery rhyme. In the very stammering of rage there may be thought to be something more than a simple inability to choose between words; and in the moaning of sorrow something more than an inability to find suitable expression. All children—and children, as somebody (I forget who he was, but he was a wise man) has said, are usually very clever people till they get spoilt—fall naturally, long after they are quite able to express themselves as it is called rationally, into a sort of pleasant gibberish when they are alone and pleased, or even displeased. And I dare say that a fair number of very considerably grown-up folk, who have not only come to the legal years of discretion but to the poetical age of wisdom, do the like now and then.
"As one walks by oneself,And talks to oneself,"
by the seaside or on a lonely country road, it must be a not infrequent experience of most people that one frequently falls into pure jingle and nonsense-verse of the nursery kind. In fact, it must have happened to more people than one, or one thousand, by the malice of a sudden corner or the like, to have been caught doing so to their great confusion, and to the comfortable convictionof the other party that he has met with an escaped lunatic.
I should myself, though I may not carry many people with me, go farther than this and say that this "attraction of the inarticulate," this allurement of mere sound and sequence, has a great deal more to do than is generally thought with the charm of the very highest poetry, and that no merely valuable thought presented without this accompaniment can possibly affect us as it does when it summons to its aid such concert of vowels and consonants as—
or as—
In the best nursery rhymes, as in the simpler and more genuine ballads which have so close a connection with them, we find this attraction of the inarticulate—this charm of pure sound, this utilising of alliteration and rhyme and assonance, and the cunning juxtaposition now of similar, now of contrary vowels—not in a passionate, but in a frank and simple form. Many of them probably, some of them certainly, had, as has been said, a definite meaning once, and we may attend to the folklorist as he expounds what it was or may have been; but for the most part they have very victoriously got the better of that meaning, have bid it, in their own lingo, "go to Spain," without the slightest meditation or back-thought whether Spain is the proper place for it or not. In that particularlocus classicus"Spain" rhymes to "rain," and that is not merely the chief and principal, but the absolutely all-sufficient thing.So, too, there is no doubt a most learned explanation of the jargon (variously given and spelt)—
"Hotum-potum, paradise tantum, perry-merry-dictum, domaree,"
at which a friend of mine used to laugh consumedly, declaring that this cavalier coupling of "paradisetantum" "onlyparadise," was the nicest thing he knew. But the people who mellowed it into that form, and recited it afterwards, never cared one scrap for the meaning. They had got it into a pleasant jingle of vowels, a desirable sequence of consonants, and a good swing of cadence, and that was enough. When "Curlylocks" is invited to be "mine" by the promise "thou shalt sew a fine seam," does anybody suppose that this housewifely operation was much more (it may have been a little more) of a bait to the Curlylocks of those days than to the Curlylocks of these? Not at all. "Sew" and "seam" went naturally together, they made a pleasing alliteration, and the latter word rhymed to "cream," of which the Curlylocks of all days has been not unusually fond.
Not, of course, that there is not much wit and much wisdom, much picturesqueness and not a little pathos in our rhymes. All good men have justly admired these qualities in "Sing a Song of Sixpence" and "Ding-dong Bell," in "Margery Daw" and "Who Killed Cock Robin?" I rather suspect the wicked literary man of having more to do than genuine popular sentiment with the delightful progress and ending of "There was a Little Boy and a Little Girl." But the undoubtedly genuine notes are numerous enough and various enough, from that previously mentioned and admirable thrift of good King Arthur, or rather of Queen Guinevere (from whom, according to naughty romancers, we should have less expected it), to the sound common-sense of "Three Children;" fromthe decorative convention of "Little Boy Blue" to the arabesque and even grotesque of "Hey-diddle-diddle."
But I shall still contend that the main, the pervading, the characteristic attraction of them lies in their musical accompaniment of purely senseless sound, in their rhythm, rhyme, jingle, refrain, and the like, in the simplicity and freshness of their modulated form. For thus they serve as anthems and doxologies to the goddess whom in this context it is not satirical to call "DivineNonsensia," who still in all lands and times condescends now and then to unbind the burden of meaning from the backs and brains of men, and lets them rejoice once more in pure, natural, senseless sound.
George Saintsbury.
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INDEX TO FIRST LINES
PAGEA carrion crow sat on an oak51A diller, a dollar10A farmer went trotting upon his grey mare230frog he would a-wooing go191A gentleman of good account128A little cock sparrow sat on a green tree75A long-tailed pig, and a short-tailed pig274A man of words and not of deeds62An apple pie, when it looks nice256A nick and a nock330An old woman was sweeping her house282A pie sate on a pear-tree204Around the green gravel the grass grows green266As I walked by myself290As I was a-going by a little pig-sty302As I was going o'er Westminster Bridge289As I was going to sell my eggs229As I was going to St. Ives48As I was going up Pippen Hill277As little Jenny Wren267As soft as silk, as white as milk144A swarm of bees in May79A was an apple-pie108A was an archer, and shot at a frog79Baa, baa, black sheep87Barber, barber, shave a pig145Bat, bat109Bessy Bell and Mary Gray106Billy, Billy, come and play179Bless you, bless you, burny-bee270Blow, wind, blow! and go, mill, go307Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea246Bow, wow, says the dog135Bryan O'Lin, and his wife, and wife's mother294Bryan O'Lin had no breeches to wear146Buttons a farthing a pair267Bye, baby bunting296Charley, Charley, stole the barley76Cherries are ripe333Cock a doodle doo182Cold and raw the north wind doth blow294Come, let's to bed63Come, take up your hats, and away let us haste237"Croak!" said the toad, "I'm hungry, I think"67Cross patch220Curly locks! curly locks! wilt thou be mine?28Cushy cow bonny51Cut them on Monday333Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town75Dame Trot and her cat313Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John176Diddle-y-diddle-y-dumpty241Ding, dong bell297Dingty, diddledy, my mammy's maid326Doctor Faustus was a good man205Doctor Foster went to Glo'ster47Early to bed, and early to rise114Elizabeth, Eliza, Betsy, and Bess213Elsie Marley is grown so fine26For every evil under the sun58For want of a nail, the shoe was lost246Four and twenty tailors went to kill a snail298Gay go up and gay go down19Girls and boys, come out to play61God bless the master of this house224Good people all, of every sort214Goosey, goosey, gander198Great A, little A330Handy-Spandy, Jack-a-dandy46Hark, hark71Have you seen the old woman of Banbury Cross34He loves me321Hector Protector was dressed all in green122Here a little child I stand334Here comes a poor widow from Babylon312Here's Sulky Sue276He that would thrive255Hey! diddle, diddle86Hey ding-a-ding254Hey, my kitten, my kitten278Hickety, pickety, my black hen232Hickory, Dickory, Dock190Higgledy piggledy16Hot-cross Buns!252How do you do, neighbour?313How many miles is it to Babylon?27Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall23Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top96Hushy baby, my doll, I pray you don't cry181I am a gold lock3I do not like thee, Doctor Fell325If all the world were water223If I'd as much money as I could spend63I had a little castle326I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen180I had a little husband235I had a little moppet265I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear256I had a little pony241I had four brothers over the sea30I have seen you, little mouse144I like little pussy, her coat is so warm38I'll tell you a story85I love my love with an A, because he's agreeable12I love you well, my little brother231In Egypt was a dragon dire140In marble walls as white as milk223I saw a ship a-sailing125I saw three ships come sailing by259Is John Smith within?123I will sing you a song219Jack and Jill went up the hill93Jack Jingle went 'prentice253Jack Sprat274Jack Sprat could eat no fat53Jack Sprat's pig106Jacky, come give me my fiddle248January brings the snow295Jenny Wren fell sick303Jocky was a piper's son167John Cook had a little grey mare; he, haw, hum!9John Gilpin was a citizen150Johnny Pringle had a little pig251Johnny shall have a new bonnet124Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home180Lavender blue and rosemary green278"Let us go to the woods," says Richard to Robin188"Let us go to the wood," says this pig54Little Betty Blue329Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep64Little Bob Snooks was fond of his books94Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn48Little Jack Horner134Little Miss Muffet41Little Nancy Etticoat255Little Polly Flinders261Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree15Little Tommy Tittlemouse16Little Tom Tucker69London Bridge is broken down24Lucy Locket317Mary had a pretty bird147Mary, Mary, quite contrary168Master I have, and I am his man94Merry are the bells, and merry would they ring83Monday alone289Monday's bairn is fair of face216Multiplication is vexation212My father he died, but I can't tell you how56My lady Wind, my lady Wind5Needles and pins, needles and pins107Nose, nose, jolly red nose126Now what do you think245Oh, what have you got for dinner?314Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!260Old King Cole1Old Mother Goose110Old Mother Hubbard118On Christmas Eve I turned the spit212One, he loves18One misty moisty morning55One old Oxford ox opening oysters37One, two, buckle my shoe166One, two, three, four, five261Over the water, and over the lea72Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man!36Pease-porridge hot, pease-porridge cold83Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper22Please to remember11Polly, put the kettle on281Poor old Robinson Crusoe!99Punch and Judy219Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?176Pussy sits beside the fire293Queen Anne, Queen Anne, you sit in the sun99Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit Pie!36Rain, rain, go away105Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross70Ride away, ride away, Johnny shall ride84Robert Barnes, fellow fine209Robin-a-Bobbin bent his bow222Robin the Bobbin, the big bouncing Ben199Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green199Rub-a-dub-dub247Says A, Give me a good large slice262See, Saw, Margery Daw242See-saw, sacaradown121Simple Simon met a pieman270Sing a song of sixpence115Six little mice sat down to spin167Snail, snail, come out of your hole229Solomon Grundy86St. Swithin's day, if thou dost rain15Sukey, you shall be my wife304Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief91Tell-Tale-Tit136The cock's on the housetop324The cuckoo's a fine bird54The Dog will come when he is called224The dove says coo, coo, what shall I do?34The fox and his wife they had a great strife206The girl in the lane, that couldn't speak plain147The Hart he loves the high wood265The King of France went up the hill126The lion and the unicorn4The man in the moon263The man in the wilderness asked me37The north wind doth blow269The Queen of Hearts136The rose is red, the violet blue270There once were two cats321There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile171There was a jolly miller171There was a jovial beggar243There was a lady loved a swine221There was a little boy and a little girl27There was a little boy went into a barn281There was a little Guinea-pig40There was a little man292There was a little man, and he had a little gun143There was a little woman, as I've been told266There was a man, and he had naught95There was a man of Newington39There was a monkey climb'd up a tree7There was a piper had a cow168There was an old woman, and what do you think?77There was an old woman, as I've heard tell12There was an old woman called Nothing-at-all247There was an old woman had three sons183There was an old woman lived under a hill232There was an old woman tossed up in a basket88There was an old woman who lived in a shoe216There were three jovial Welshmen264There were two blackbirds70There's a neat little clock220Thirty days hath September3This is the death of little Jenny Wren308This is the house that Jack built42This is the way the ladies ride92This little pig went to market108Three blind mice, see how they run!268Three children sliding on the ice22Three little kittens322Three wise men of Gotham302Tinker, tailor319Tit, tat, toe288To market, to market, to buy a plum bun122Tom, Tom, the piper's son73Tom, Tom, the piper's son200Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee275Twinkle, twinkle, little star210Two legs sat upon three legs32Two little kittens, one stormy night299Up hill and down dale78Upon St. Paul's steeple330Wash me and comb me236We are three brethren out of Spain148Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town266What are little boys made of, made of?301What is the news of the day?298When a Twister a twisting, will twist him a twist68When good King Arthur ruled this land6When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself197When I was a little boy232When little Fred114When the wind is in the east184"Where are you going, my pretty maid?"96Where have you been all the day?59Where should a baby rest?187Who killed Cock Robin?172Willy boy, Willy boy, where are you going?254"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the spider to the fly100Yankee Doodle went to town274Yet didn't you see, yet didn't you see251Young Lambs to sell!248