LULLABY.
SHAKSPEARE, in Titus Andronicus, says,
"Be unto us, as is a nurse's song
Of Lullaby to bring her babe to sleep."
A learned commentator gives us what he facetiously calls a lullaby note on this.
"The verb to lull, means to sing Gently, and it is connected with the Greek λαλεω [Greek: laleo], loquor, or λαλα [Greek: lala], the sound made by the beach of the sea. The Roman nurses used the word lalla, to quiet their children, and they feigned a deity called Lullus, whom they invoked on that occasion; the lullaby, or tune itself was called by the same name."— Douce.
Lullaby is supposed a contraction for Lull-a-baby. The Welsh are celebrated for their Lullaby songs, and a good Welsh nurse, with a pleasing voice, has been sometimes found more soporific in the nursery, than the midwife's anodyne. The contrary effects of Swift's song, "Here we go up, up, up," and the smile-provoking melody of "Hey diddle, diddle," cum multis aliis, are too well known to be enumerated or disputed. "The Good Nurse" give us a chapter on the advantage of employing music in certain stages of protracted illness.