ship began to sail
The captain cried 'Quack! quack!'
Quack!--quack!--quack!
The captain cried 'Quack! quack!'"

DAVID THE WELSHMAN.

"Taffy was a wicked Welshman,
Taffy was a wicked thief,
Taffy came to my house
And stole a piece of beef.
I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was in bed,
I got the poker
And hit him on the head."

Sung in derision along the Welsh borders on St. David's Day. Formerly it
was the custom of the London mob on this day to dress up a guy and
carry him round the principal thoroughfares. The ragged urchins
following sang the rhyme of "Taffy was a wicked Welshman."

"MY FATHER HE DIED."

The historical value of nursery rhymes is incapable of being better
illustrated than in the following old English doggerel:--

"My father he died, I cannot tell how,
He left me six horses to drive out my plough,
With a wimmy lo! wommy lo!
Jack Straw, blazey boys.
Wimmy lo! wimmy lo! wob, wob, wob."

Mr. Halliwell dates it as of Richard II.'s time, and this much may be
said for this opinion, that there is no greater authority than he on the
subject of early English rhymes and carols. Mr. Halliwell also believes
that of British nursery rhymes it is the earliest extant. There are
those, however, who dissent from this view, holding that many of the
child's songs sung to-day were known to our Saxon forefathers. In 1835
Mr. Gowler, who wrote extensively on the archaeology of English phrases
and nursery rhymes, ingeniously attempted to claim whole songs and
tales, giving side by side the Saxon and the English versions. There
certainly was a phonetic similarity between them, but the local value of
the Saxon, when translated, reads in a strange way, being little more
than a protest against the Church's teaching and influence.

"Who killed Cock Robin?" is given at length by Mr. Gowler, as well as
many scraps of other nursery rhymes. Mr. Gowler seemed to claim that
though the lettered language of each succeeding age fashions afresh, the
Baby Kingdom knows no such vocal revolutions.

CHAPTER XII.

SCOTCH RHYMES.

The great and alluring exercise of "Through the needle-e'e, boys" has
this immemorial rhyme:--

"As I went up the Brandy Hill
I met my father wi' gude will;
He had jewels, he had rings,
He had many braw things,
He'd a cat-and-nine-tails,
He'd a hammer wantin' nails.
Up J