buried with the Dead--Aerostation--St.
Thomas of Lancaster--Smoke Money--Robert Herrich--Guildhalls--Abbe
Strickland--Long Conkin--Havock--Becket's Mother--Watching
the Sepulchre--Portraits of Charles I.--Joachim,
the French Ambassador. 269

MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 271
Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 271
Notices to Correspondents. 271
Advertisements. 272

* * * * *

NOTES.

OLD SONGS.

I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of
his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and
yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in
another county. It commenced with--

"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare
For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"

and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.

I find in Hasted's _History of Kent_ (vol. i. p. 468., 2nd edit.)
mention made of the family of Shaw, who held the manor of Eltham, &c.,
and who "derive themselves from the county palatine of Chester." It is
further stated that _Randal de Shaw_, his son, was settled at Haslington
Hall in that county.

All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the
song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties;
and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general
facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of
English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to
point out the probable district in which it will be found.

There are many other characteristics of the manners of the humbler
classes to be found in songs that had great local popularity within the
period of living memory; for instance, the _Wednesbury Cocking_ amongst
the colliers of Staffordshire and _Rotherham Status_ amongst the cutlers
of Sheffield. Their language, it is true, is not always very
delicate--perhaps was not even at the time these songs were
composed,--as they picture rather the exuberant freaks of a
half-civilised people than the better phases of their character. Yet
even these form "part and parcel" of the history of "the true-born
Englishman."

One song more may be noticed here:--the rigmarole, snatches of which
probably most of us have heard, which contains an immense number of mere
truisms having no connexion with each others, and no bond of union but
the metrical form in which their juxtaposition