"Hey! diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped under the moon;
The little dog barked
to see such sport
And the cat ran after the spoon!" [*]
[*] Our friend, the Quaker, holds that the last verse is the proper
one, as it is the truest; but the wonderful is taken out of it, and
children, accordingly, prefer the first. There is nothing wonderful
in the cow jumping "under" the moon, but there is in the cow jumping
"over" the moon, so with the black-birds baked in a pie. It is the
fact of their singing when the pie is opened that pleases the
children--'twas the wonder of the thing; so with the freaks of
Mother Hubbard's Dog, etc. In nearly all nursery rhymes it is the
ludicrous and wonderful that arrests the attention and pleases.
E. W. Cole