259

The Sleeping Beauty, 274

RHYMES OF THE NURSERY.

Writing on the subject of nursery rhymes more than half a century ago,
the late Dr. Robert Chambers expressed regret because, as he said,
"Nothing had of late been revolutionised so much as the nursery." But
harking back on the period of his own childhood, he was able to say,
with a feeling of satisfaction, that the young mind was then "cradled
amidst the simplicities of the uninstructed intellect; and _she_ was
held to be the best nurse who had the most copious supply of song, and
tale, and drollery, at all times ready to soothe and amuse her young
charges. There were, it is true, some disadvantages in the system; for
sometimes superstitious terrors were implanted, and little pains were
taken to distinguish between what tended to foster the evil and what
tended to elicit the better feelings of infantile nature. Yet the ideas
which presided over the scene," he continues, "and rung through it all
the day in light gabble and jocund song, were simple, often beautiful
ideas, generally well expressed, and unquestionably suitable to the
capacities of children.... There was no philosophy about these gentle
dames; but there was generally endless kindness, and a wonderful power
of keeping their little flock in good humour. It never occurred to them
that children were anything but children--'Bairns are just bairns,' my
old nurse would say--and they never once thought of beginning to make
them men and women while still little more than able to speak." They did
not; and, in the common homes of Scotland, they do not to this hour. The
self-same rhymes and drollery which amused Dr. Chambers as a child are
amusing and engaging the minds and exercising the faculties of children
over all the land even now. I question if there is a child anywhere
north of the Tweed who has not been entertained by

Brow, brow, brinkie,
Ee, ee, winkie,
Nose, nose, nebbie,
Cheek, cheek, cherrie,
Mou, mou, merry,
Chin, chin, chuckie,
Curry-wurry! Curry-wurry! etc.

Or the briefer formula, referring only to the brow, the eye, the nose,
and the mouth, which runs:--

Chap at the door,
Keek in,
Lift the sneck,
Walk in.

And it was only the other evening that I saw a father with his infant
son on his knee, having a little hand spread out, and entertaining its
owner by travelling from thumb to l