The following alphabet or literal rhyme refers to Carr, Earl of Somerset, the favorite of James I:
J. C. U. R.
Good Mounseir Car
About to fall;
U. R. A. K.
As most men say,
Yet that's not all.
U. O. K. P.
With a nullytye,
That shamelesse packe!
S. X. his yf (wife),
Whos shamelesse lyfe
Hath broke your backe.
MS. Sloane 1489, f. 9, vo.
A. B. C.
D. E. F. G.
H. I. J. K., if you look you'll see;
L. M. N. O. P. Q.
R. S. T. U. V. W.
X. Y. Z.
Heigh ho! my heart is low,
My mind is all on one;
It's W for I know who,
And T for my love, Tom!
[V.—RIDDLE-RHYMES.]
A very favorite class of rhymes with children, though the solutions are often most difficult to guess. Nursery riddle-rhymes are extremely numerous, and a volume might be filled with them without much difficulty. Many of the most common ones are found in manuscript collections of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
I'm in every one's way,
But no one I stop;
My four horns every day
In every way play,
And my head is nailed on at the top!
—A turnstile.
There was a king met a king
In a straight lane;
Says the king to the king,
Where have you been?
I've been in the wood,
Hunting the doe:
Pray lend me your dog,
That I may do so.
Call him, call him!
What must I call him?
Call him as you and I,
We've done both.
—The dog's name was Been, and the name of the persons who met each other was King. This riddle was obtained recently from oral tradition. I observe, however, a version of it in MS. Harl. 1962, of the seventeenth century.
The cuckoo and the gowk,
The laverock and the lark,
The twire-snipe, the weather-bleak;
How many birds is that?