The Chenodia, now first printed, an experiment for the author’s own amusement, partly in classic verse of various metres, partly in mediæval and unclassic rhyme, and partly, like the original English, in no metre at all, is tendered as an offset for any disparagement of the dead languages contained in two essays read in 1865 and 1866, at a time when classical studies were paramount in Harvard University and other colleges of the United States.
J. B.
[*] There appears to be some reason for believing that at least a century before Gammer Gurton’s works were published in England, a bodily “Mother Goose” was at work on the other side of the Channel. In Scott’s novel of “Woodstock,” chapter 28, Charles II., then a fugitive, says: “It reminds me, like half the things I meet with in this world, of the ‘Contes de Commère l’Oye.’” Not having been able to obtain a sight of “Commère l’Oye,” we must leave the original claim for authorship as a field for future controversy.
[CONTENTS.]
| PAGE | |
| Sprattus et Uxor | [9] |
| Par Avium | [10] |
| Rex Arthurus | [11] |
| Mors Turdo-Galli | [12] |
| Puer Cæruleus | [13] |
| Vetula Calceocola | [14] |
| Canis Kevensis | [14] |
| Diccora Dogium | [15] |
| Thomæ Quadrijugæ | [16] |
| Homunculus et Puellula | [17] |
| Bopipias | [20] |
| Advenæ Mendici | [20] |
| Lunicola | [21] |
| Magi Gothamenses | [22] |
| Jackus et Jilla | [23] |
| Felis in Fidibus | [24] |
| Grumbo Gigas | [25] |
| Miles Redux | [26] |
| Ansercula | [27] |
| Labor et Cura | [28] |
CHENODIA.
[ SPRATTUS ET UXOR.]
Jack Spratt could eat no fat,