The Nursery Rhymes of England Part 11

The art of good driving 's a paradox quite, Though custom has prov'd it so long; If you go to the left, you're sure to go right, If you go to the right, you go wrong.

CVII.

Friday night's dream On the Sat.u.r.day told, Is sure to come true, Be it never so old.

CVIII.

When the sand doth feed the clay, England woe and well-a-day!

But when the clay doth feed the sand, Then it is well with Angle-land.

CIX.

The fair maid who, the first of May, Goes to the fields at break of day, And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree Will ever after handsome be.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIFTH CLa.s.s--SCHOLASTIC.

CX.

A diller, a dollar, A ten o'clock scholar, What makes you come so soon?

You used to come at ten o'clock, But now you come at noon.

CXI.

Tell tale, t.i.t!

Your tongue shall be slit, And all the dogs in the town Shall have a little bit.

CXII.

[The joke or the following consists in saying it so quick that it cannot be told whether it is English or gibberish. It is remarkable that the last two lines are quoted in MS. Sloan. 4, of the fifteenth century, as printed in the 'Reliq. Antiq.,'

vol. i, p. 324.]

In fir tar is, In oak none is.

In mud eel is, In clay none is.

Goat eat ivy, Mare eat oats.

CXIII.

[The dominical letters attached to the first days of the several months are remembered by the following lines.]

At Dover Dwells George Brown Esquire, Good Christopher Finch, And David Friar.

[An ancient and graver example, fulfilling the same purpose, runs as follows.]

Astra Dabit Dominus, Gratisque Beabit Egenos, Gratia Christicolae Feret Aurea Dona Fideli.

CXIV.

Birch and green holly, boys, Birch and green holly.

If you get beaten, boys, 'Twill be your own folly.

CXV.

When V and I together meet, They make the number Six compleat.

When I with V doth meet once more, Then 'tis they Two can make but Four And when that V from I is gone, Alas! poor I can make but One.

CXVI.

Multiplication is vexation, Division is as bad; The Rule of Three doth puzzle me, And Practice drives me mad.

CXVII.

[The following memorial lines are by no means modern. They occur, with slight variations, in an old play, called 'The Returne from Parna.s.sus,' 4to, Lond. 1606; and another version may be seen in Winter's 'Cambridge Almanac' for 1635. See the 'Rara Mathematica,' p. 119.]

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; February has twenty-eight alone, All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting leap-year, that's the time When February's days are twenty-nine.

CXVIII.

My story's ended, My spoon is bended: If you don't like it, Go to the next door, And get it mended.

CXIX.

[On arriving at the end of a book, boys have a practice of reciting the following absurd lines, which form the word _finis_ backwards and forwards, by the initials of the words,]--

Father Iohnson Nicholas Iohnson's son-- Son Iohnson Nicholas Iohnson's Father.

[To get to father Johnson, therefore, was to reach the end of the book.]

CXX.

The rose is red, the gra.s.s is green; And in this book my name is seen.