I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of
his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and
yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in
another county. It commenced with--
"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare
For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"
and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.
I find in Hasted's _History of Kent_ (vol. i. p. 468., 2nd edit.)
mention made of the family of Shaw, who held the manor of Eltham, &c.,
and who "derive themselves from the county palatine of Chester." It is
further stated that _Randal de Shaw_, his son, was settled at Haslington
Hall in that county.
All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the
song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties;
and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general
facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of
English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to
point out the probable district in which it will be found.
There are many other characteristics of the manners of the humbler
classes to be found in songs that had great local popularity within the
period of living memory; for instance, the _Wednesbury Cocking_ amongst
the colliers of Staffordshire and _Rotherham Status_ amongst the cutlers
of Sheffield. Their language, it is true, is not always very
delicate--perhaps was not even at the time these songs were
composed,--as they picture rather the exuberant freaks of a
half-civilised people than the better phases of their character. Yet
even these form "part and parcel" of the history of "the true-born
Englishman."
One song more may be noticed here:--the rigmarole, snatches of which
probably most of us have heard, which contains an immense number of mere
truisms having no connexion with each others, and no bond of union but
the metrical form in which their juxtaposition is effected, and the
rhyme, which is kept up very well throughout, though sometimes by the
introduction of a nonsense line. Who does not remember--
"A yard of pudding's not an ell,"
or
"Not forgetting _dytherum di_,
A tailor's goose can never fly,"
and other like parts?
It is just such a piece of burlesque as Swift might have written: but
many circumstances lead me to think it must be much older. Has it ever
been printed?
There is another old (indeed an evidently very ancient) song, which I do
not remember to have seen in print, or even referred to in print. None
of the books into which I have looked, from deeming them likely to
contain it, make the least reference to this song. I have heard it in
one of the midland counties, and in one of the western, both many years
ago; but I have not heard it in London or any of the metropolitan
districts. The song begins thus:--
"London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my Lady Lea:
London Bridge is broken down,
With a gay ladÈe."
This must surely refer to some event preserved in history,--may indeed
be well known to well-read antiquaries, though so totally unknown to men
whose general pursuits (like my own) have lain in other directions. The
present, however, is an age for "popularising" knowledge; and your work
has assumed that task as one of its functions.
The difficulties attending such inquiries as arise out of matters so
trivial as an old ballad, are curiously illustrated by the answers
already printed respecting the "wooing frog." In the first place, it was
attributed to times within living memory; then shown to exceed that
period, and supposed to be very old,--even as old as the Commonwealth,
or, perhaps, as the Reformation. This is objected to, from "the style
and wording of the song being evidently of a much later period than the
age of Henry VIII.;" and Buckingham's "mad" scheme of taking Charles
into Spain to woo the infanta is substituted. This is enforced by the
"burden of the song;" whilst another correspondent considers this
"chorus" to be an old one, analogous to "Down derry down:"--that is, M.
denies the force of MR. MAHONY's explanation altogether!
(Why MR. MAHONY calls a person in his "sixth decade" a "sexagenarian" he
best knows. Such is certainly not the ordinary meaning of the term he
uses. His pun is good, however.)
Then comes the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT, with a very decisive proof that
neither in the time of James I., nor of the Commonwealth, could it have
originated. His transcript from Mr. Collier's _Extracts_ carries it
undeniably back to the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Of course, it
is interesting to find intermediate versions or variations of the
ballad, and even the adaptation of its framework to other ballads of
recent times, such as "Heigho! says Kemble,"--one of the Drury Lane
"O.P. Row" ballads (_Rejected Addresses_, last ed., or Cunningham's
_London_). Why the conjecture respecting Henry VIII. is so
contemptuously thrown aside as a "fancy," I do not see. A _fancy_ is a
dogma taken up without proof, and in the teeth of obvious
probability,--tenaciously adhered to, and all investigation eschewed.
This at least is the ordinary signification of the term, in relation to
the search after truth. How far my own conjecture, or the mode of
putting it, fulfills these conditions, it is not necessary for me to
discuss: but I hope the usefulness and interest of the "NOTES AND
QUERIES" will not be marred by any discourtesy of one correspondent
towards another.
At the same time, the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT has done the most essential
service to this inquiry by his extract from Mr. Collier, as the question
is thereby inclosed within exceedingly narrow limits. But if the ballad
do not refer to Henry VIII., to whom can it be referred with greater
probability? It is too much to assume that all the poetry, wit, and
talent of the Tudor times were confined to the partizans of the Tudor
cause, religious or political. We _know_, indeed, the contrary. But for
his communication, too, the singular coincidence of two such
characteristic words of the song in the "Poley Frog" (in the same number
of the "NOTES AND QUERIES") might have given rise to another conjecture:
but the _date_ excludes its further consideration.
I may add, that since this has been mooted, an Irish gentleman has told
me that the song was familiar enough in Dublin; and he repeated some
stanzas of it, which were considerably different from the version of
W.A.G., and the chorus the same as in the common English version. I hope
presently to receive a complete copy of it: which, by the bye, like
everything grotesquely humorous in Ireland, was attributed to the author
of _Gulliver's Travels_.