nly did I know him nonplussed by a Suffolk
phrase. This was in the school at Monk Soham, where a small boy one day
had been put in the corner. "What for?" asked my father; and a chorus of
voices answered, "He ha' bin tittymatauterin," which meant, it seems,
playing at see-saw. I retain, of course, my father's own spelling; but
he always himself maintained that to reproduce the dialect phonetically
is next to impossible--that, for instance, there is a delicate _nuance_
in the Suffolk pronunciation of _dog_, only faintly suggested by _dawg_.

I.
OLD TIMES.

Fooks alluz saa as they git old,
That things look wusser evry day;
They alluz sed so, I consate;
Leastwise I've h'ard my mother saa,

When she was growed up, a big gal,
And went to sarvice at the Hall,
She han't but one stuff gownd to wear,
And not the lissest mite of shawl.

But now yeou caan't tell whue is whue;
Which is the missus, which the maid,
There ain't no tellin'; for a gal,
Arter she's got her wages paid,

Will put 'em all upon her back,
And look as grand as grand can be;
My poor old mother would be stamm'd {39}
_Her_ gal should iver look like she.

And 'taint the lissest bit o' use
To tell 'em anything at all;
They'll only laff, or else begin
All manner o' hard names to call.

Praps arter all it 'tain't the truth,
That one time's wusser than the t'other;
Praps I'm a-gittin' old myself,
And fare to talk like my old mother.

I shaan't dew nowt by talkin' so,
I'd better try the good old plan,
Of spakin' sparing of most folks,
And dewin' all the good I can.

J. D.

II.

My father used to repeat one stanza of an old song; I wonder whether the
remainder still exists in any living memory. That one stanza ran:--

"The roaring boys of Pakefield,
Oh, how they all do thrive!
They had but one poor parson,
And him they buried alive."

Whether the prosperity of Pakefield was to be dated or derived from the
fact of their burying their "one poor parson" is a matter of dangerous
speculation, and had better be left in safe obscurity; else other places
might be tempted to make trial of the successful plan. But can any one
send a copy of the whole song?

From the same authority I give a stanza of another song:--

"The cackling old hen she began to collogue,
Says she unto the fox, 'You're a stinking old rogue;
Your scent it is so strong, I do wish you'd keep awa