,
And drew the frog into the lake.
The rat ran up the wall,
And so the company parted all."

The rhyming tale of "The frog who would a-wooing go" is similar in every
way to the above.

In Japan one of the most notable fairy-tales relates a story of a
mouse's wedding.

SONGS OF LONDON BOYS IN TUDOR TIMES.

In the next two reigns, Edward VI. and Philip and Mary's, the musical
abilities of the London boy were carefully looked after and cultivated.
The ballads he sang recommended him to employers wanting apprentices.
Christ's Blue Coat School and Bridewell Seminary offered unusual
facilities for voice training. One happy illustration of the customs of
the sixteenth century was the habit of the barber-surgeon's boy, who
amused the customers, waiting for "next turn" to be shaved or bled, with
his ballad or rhyming verse; and a boy with a good voice proved a rare
draw to the "bloods" about town, and those who frequented the taverns
and ordinaries within the City.

In the next reign the condition of the poor was much improved; the
effect of the land sales in Henry VII.'s reign, when the moneyed
classes purchased two-thirds of the estates of the nobility, and spent
their amassed wealth in cultivating and improving the neglected lands.
This factor--as well as the cessation of the Wars of the Roses--was
beginning to work a lasting benefit to the poor, as the street cries of
1557 show, for, according to the register of the Stationers' Company
that year, a licence was granted to John Wallye and Mrs. Toye to print a
ballad, entitled--

"Who lyve so mery and make such sporte
As they that be of the poorest sort?"

"Who liveth so merry in all the land
As doth the poor widow who selleth the sand?
And ever she singeth, as I can guess,
'Will you buy my sand--any sand--mistress?'

_Chorus._

"Who would desire a pleasanter thing
Than all the day long to do nothing but sing?
Who liveth so merry and maketh such sport
As those who be of the poorer sort?"

Even Daniel De Foe, writing one hundred and twenty years after, paid a
passing tribute to Queen Elizabeth, and said "that the faint-hearted
economists of 1689 would show something worthy of themselves if they
employed the poor to the same glorious advantage as did Queen
Elizabeth."

Going back to the centuries prior to the Tudor period, one is reminded
that all the best efforts at minstrelsy--song,