142 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Aug. 25. 1855. 



I can wish and hope for personally is, that if such 

 a project is in agitation, it will be adopted, and 

 that you may be made librarian and me book- 

 seller, with such ample funds as would allow of 

 our indulging our fancies and covetousness for 

 books. What a library would it possess in the 

 course of ten or twelve years ! The older ones 

 must of course surpass it in curiosities, but for 

 extent and usefulness we would be able to com- 

 pare with any." 



BlBLIOTHECAR. ChETHAM. 



*' THE SONGS OF THE DKAMATISTS." 



There is a little matter in " The Songs of the 

 Dramatists," included in Mr. Bell's Annotated 

 Bi'itish Poets, which seems to rae worthy of a note. 

 At p. 46. are given certain '■'•foots of songs," sung 

 by Moros the Fool in the play of The longer thou 

 limst the more Fool thou art, by one William 

 Wager. These conclude with the following, 

 called — 



" A CATCH. 



"I have a pretty titmouse 



Come pecking on my toe. 

 Gossip with A'ou I purpose 



To drink before I go. 

 Little prett}- nightingale, 



Among the branches green. 

 Give us of your Christmas ale, 



In the honour of Saint Stephen. 

 Robin redbreast with liis notes, 



Singing aloft in the quire, 

 Warneth to get j'our frieze coats. 



For winter then draweth near. 

 My bridle lieth on the shelf, 



If you will have an}' more, 

 Vouchsafe to sing it yourself, 



Tor here you liave all my store." 



This reads at first sight very like nonsense, and I 

 would suggest that Mr. Bell might, without incur- 

 ring the risk of "superfluous annotation," have 

 taken a little pains to reduce it to sense. To 

 begin with the title, " A Catch :" I have not seen 

 the original play, and cannot therefore tell if it is 

 so designated therein ; but T perceive that, in other 

 cases in this book, the editor has given "head 

 lines" to compositions having none, and I strongly 

 suspect that he has done so in this instance. In 

 that case, and indeed in any case, I would suggest 

 that "A Catch" is a misnomer. That would 

 imply that it was a composition of a peculiar con- 

 struction, intended to be sung by several voices. 

 This, on the contrary, is simply a comic ballad, 

 sung by one person only. Why it should have 

 been termed a catch, is inexplicable to me ; unless 

 on the supposition that its real point and purpose, 

 altogether escaped whoever christened it; and 

 that, regarding it as a piece of nonsense, they 

 considered as appropriate a title which nonsense- 

 verses have borne before. 

 No. 304.] 



But the verses are in fact very good sense, and 

 that sense it only requires a little alteration in the 

 punctuation to make apparent on the surface. 

 The key to this right punctuation is however 

 found less in the lines themselves than in others 

 which precede them on the same page. Referring 

 to some other of the fool's snatches, we find one 

 ending : 



" / laid my bridle on the sheJf, 

 If you will any more, sing it yourself." 



And again : 



" I have twenty more songs yet, 



A fond woman to my mother. 

 As I were wont in her lap to sit. 



She taught me these, and many other. 

 I can sing a song of Rohm Redbreast,^ 



And ' My little pretty Nightingale,' 

 'Tiiere dwelleth a jolly Foster here by tlie West,' 



Also, ' / come to drink some of your Christmas ale.' 

 When I walk by myself alone. 

 It doth me good my songs to render." 



Now, in point of fact, the catch, as it is called, 

 is a composition precisely in character with that 

 just cited. It is a song composed of lines from 

 various songs ; and had the editor only punctuated 

 it as follows, it would at once have been plain and 

 intelligible, and have spared one the trouble of 

 hunting farther for the meaning : 



" SONG. 



" I have, — ' A pretty titmouse 



Came pecking on my toe ;' 

 'Gossip, with you I purpose 



To drink before I go ; ' 

 ' Little pretty nightingale, 



Among the branches green.' 

 ' Give us of your Christmas ale. 



For the honour of Saint Stephen ; ' 

 ' Robin Redbreast with his note 



Singing aloft in the quire, 

 Warneth to get your frieze coat. 



For winter then draweth near ;' 

 ' 3Ii/ bridle lieth on the shelf,' — 



If you will have any more. 

 Vouchsafe to say it yourself. 



For here you have all my store." 



— a medley, introducing six snatches of, no d(mbt, 

 popular songs, with which the Fool was familiar. 

 I will conclude with a Query : Can any of your 

 readers afford any information about the songs to 

 which the Fool refers ? W. Sawyer. 



Oxford. 



FLY-LEAVES OF BOOKS : REUBEN BURROW. 



This very low-minded mathematician was born 

 in Yorkshire, and was successively a clerk, writing- 

 master, schoolmaster, astronomical assistant to 

 Maskelyne, editor of the Ladies'' Diary, and as- 

 sistant on the trigonometrical survey in India, 

 where he died in 1791 or 1792. He was a good 

 geometer and an able man, and he left several 

 works in print. He had an excessive hatred of 



