186 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2''dS. N<>114., Mar. C. '58. 



A NOTE TO HALLIWELL's " NURSERY RHYMES." 



Among many curious old songs preserved in 

 this exceedingly popular and amusing work, — in 

 which we find much of what may be termed 

 "Nursery Literature," and not a little research 

 on the part of its indefatigable compiler, — in the 

 department of the work devoted to " Relics," at 

 p. 315., are found the following lines : — 



" Jacky, come give me thy fiddle. 

 If ever thou mean to thrive ; 

 Nay, I'll not give my fiddle 

 To any man alive. 



" If I should give my fiddle, 



They'll think that I'm gone mad. 

 For many a joyful day 

 My fiddle and I have had." 



When reading the above stanzas to a person of 

 my acquaintance, well versed in the ancient bal- 

 lad literature of the district in which she was born 

 and brought up, the following verses were forcibly 

 recalled to her memory as bearing on the subject 

 of Jacky and his fiddle, immortalised in the 

 Nursery Rhymes, and which I think it not amiss to 

 quote. I know not if the verses in the Rhymes 

 be the oldest of the two, but feel certain that Mr. 

 Halliwell, if he should happen to fall in with this 

 communication, will be able to inform me. 



" O' Willie you'll sell youre fiddle, 



And buy some other thing : 

 O' Willie you'll sell youre fiddle, 



And buy some cradle or string. 

 If I would sell my fiddle. 



The folk wid think I war mad ; 

 For monna a canty nicht 



My fiddle and i hae had. ^ 



Chorus. 

 " 0' rattlin roarin Willie, 



Yer ae fu' welcome to me : 

 O' rattlin roarin Willie, 



Yer ae fu' welcome to me. 

 Yer ae fu' welcome to me, 



For a' the ill they've said ; 

 For monna a canty'nicht 

 My Willie and I hae had. 



" Foul fa' their Kirks and their Sessions, 

 The're ae sae fond o' mischief, 

 , They'll ca' me into their Sessions, 

 They'll ca' me warse than a theif. 

 They'll ca' me warse than a theif. 

 And they'll make me curse an' ban, 

 They'll brag me ae with their laws. 



Bat D 1 brake my legs gin i'U gang. 



" 0' rattjin roarin," &c. 



Mr. Halliwell, as a rare searcher into such mat- 

 ters, cannot but feel interested in lines which bear 

 such a strong resemblance to the Nursery Rhyme ; 

 and I make the gentleman, and others who may 

 have a turn for selections of the kind, heartily 

 welcome to the words in which that gay Lothario 

 "Willie indulges on being pressed to part with his 

 fiddle. K. 



Arbroath. 



Minav ^atei. 



Uolton Street, Piccadilly. — I find in Cunning- 

 ham's Hand-Booh the following quotation from 

 Smith's Antiquarian Ramble : — 



" Among the advertisements of sales by Auction in the 

 original edition of The Spectator, the mansion of Streater, 

 junior, is advertised as his country house, being near Bolton- 

 row in Piccadilly; his town residence was in Gerrard- 

 street, Soho." 



This must, I think, be a mistake ; and from the 

 character of the things to be sold, I have little 

 doubt that Streater had removed from Gerrard 

 Street to Bolton Street. Be that as it may, the 

 house is certainly not advertised as his country 

 house. I quote so much as may be necessary in 

 proof, from the original edition of No. 185. of The 

 Spectator, published October 2, 1711 : — 



" The extraordinary Choice Collection (of Mr. Streeter, 

 late Serjeant Painter), consisting of models, figures, . . . 

 will be sold b}' Auction on the 5"> Ins', at 3 in the after- 

 noon, at his late dwelling house next Bolton-street in 

 Hide-Park-Road," &c. 



B. S. P. 



Clare's " Vanities of Life." — Mr. Bell, in his 

 Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry 

 of England, p, 15., publishes under the foregoing 

 title, nineteen stanzas originally transmitted by 

 John Clare the Northamptonshire peasant poet to 

 James Montgomery, and by the latter printed in 

 the Sheffield Iris, with some remarks on their cha- 

 racter. As Mr. Bell states, they were professedly 

 copied from " the fly-leaves of an old book," 

 though he is mistaken in saying they were accom- 

 panied " by the original manuscript." The object 

 of this Note is merely to state — what I thought had 

 become pretty generally known — that the stanzas, 

 which exhibit an ingenious imitation of the style 

 of some of the moral poets of the seventeenth 

 century, were written by Clare himself. . (See 

 Memoirs of Montgomery by Holland and Everett, 

 vol. iv., pp. 96. 175.) It will there be seen that 

 various compositions from the same source ap- 

 peared in different publications, under the names 

 of popular old authors. How far the success with 

 which the names of Harrington and Davies, and 

 Marvel and Davenant, are made responsible for 

 these forgeries is a merit, or otherwise, can hnrdly 

 be considered an open question. J. H. 



Freezing of Rivers in Italy. — The Paris corre- 

 spondent of the Morning Herald for February 18, 

 has the following statement : — 



" While we Parisians are enjoying the mild and genial 

 temperature of spring, Italy is a prej' to all the horrors of 

 winter. The Po has been frozen over to such an extent 

 that men and animals have been able to cross it without 

 danger, which is the first time it has been so since the 

 commencement of the present century. Some old persons 

 remember having witnessed a similar circumstance in 

 1788, and also having heard their fathers say that the 

 river was completely frozen across in 1775." 



This information does not distinguish in what 



