hristmas pie,
And with his thumb pulls out a plum,
Saying, What a good boy am I.'"

The copy of the history of Jack Horner, containing his witty pranks and
the tricks he played upon people from his youth to old age, is preserved
in the Bodleian Library.

There are a number of men and women who recall a time when the rhymes of
"Jack Horner" and "Jack the Giant Killer" appeared finer than anything
in Shakespeare; but this much may be said for "Jack Horner," the
cavalier's song of derision at the straight-laced Puritan, that it soon
lost its political signification, gradually becoming used as a mark of
respect.

"Thus few were like him far and nigh,
When he to age was come,
As being only fourteen inches high,
A giant to Tom Thumb."

CHAPTER VIII.

RIDDLE-MAKING.

Riddle-making is not left alone by the purveyors of nursery yarns,
though belonging to the mythologic state of thought. The Hindu calls the
sun seven-horsed; so the German riddle asks--

"What is the chariot drawn by?"

"Seven white and seven black horses."

The Greek riddle of the two sisters--Day and Night. Another one given by
_Diog. Laert._ i. 91, _Athenagoras_ x. 451, runs--

"One is father, twelve the children, and born to each other
Maidens thirty, whose twain form is parted asunder,
White to behold on the one side, black to behold on the other,
All immortal in being, all doomed to dwindle and perish."[H]

"The year, months, and days."

* * * * *

An interesting English rhyme says--

"Old mother needle had but one eye,
A very long tail which she let fly,
Every time she went through a gap
She left a bit of her tail in the trap."

"Needle and sewing cotton."

* * * * *

"Purple, yellow, red, and green,
The king cannot reach, nor yet the queen,
Nor can Old Noll, whose power's so great,
Tell me this riddle while I count eight."

"A rainbow."

This nursery rhyme's date is fixed by the reference to Old Noll, the
Lord Protector.

* * * * *

"As round as an apple, as deep as a cup,
And all the king's horses can't pull it up."

"A well."

* * * * *

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Three score men, and