And

"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day,"

to let "um rosin up him fuddlestick!" These deductions are practical, if
not poetical; but these are but the emanations from the brain of
one--hundreds of other commentators differ from his view.

The most erudite linguists are excessively puzzled as to the nation whose
peculiar language has been resorted to for these singular and unequalled
introductions. The

"Too-ral-loo"

has been given up in despair. The nearest solution was that of an eminent
arithmetician, who conjectured from the word too (Anglice, _two_)--and the
use of the four cyphers--those immediately following the T and L--that
they were intended to convey some notion of the personal property of Giles
Scroggins or Molly Brown (he never made up his mind which of the two); and
merely wanted the following marks to render them plain:--

T--oo (_two_)--either shillings or pence--and L--oo: no pounds!

This may or may not be right, but the research and ingenuity deserve the
immortality we now confer upon it. The other line, the

"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day!"

has, perhaps, given rise to far more controversy, with certainly less
tangible and satisfactory results.

The scene of the poem not being expressly stated in the original or early
black-letter translation, many persons--whose love of country prompted
their wishes--have endeavoured to attach a nationality to these gordian
knots of erudition. An Hibernian gentleman of immense research--the
celebrated "Darby Kelly"--has openly asserted the whole affair to be
decidedly of Milesian origin: and, amid a vast number of corroborative
circumstances, strenuously insists upon the solidity of his premises and
deductions by triumphantly exclaiming, "What, or who but an _Irish_ poet
and an Irish hero, would commence a matter of so much consequence with the
soul-stirring "whack!" adopted by the great author, and put into the mouth
of his chosen hero?" Others again have supposed--which is also far more
improbable--that much of the obscurity of the above passage has its origin
from simple mis-spelling on the part of the poet's amanuensis--he taking
the literal dictation, forgetting the sublime author was suffering from a
cold in the head, which rendered the words in sound--

"Riddle _lol_ the lay;"

whereas they would otherwise have been pronounced--

"Riddle--_all the day_"--

that being an absolute and positive allusion to the agricultural pursuits
o