And he had one of Irish growth, which he sometimes tacked on to this last for the rhyme's sake
Callino, callino,
Callino, castore me,
Era ëe, Era ëe
Loo loo, loo loo lee.
All these were favourites with little Daniel; and so especially for his name's sake, was
My juggy, my puggy, my honey, my coney,
My deary, my love, my dove.
There was another with which and the Dovean use thereof, it is proper that the reader should now be made acquainted, for it would otherwise require explanation, when he meets with it hereafter. This was the one which, when William Dove trotted little Daniel upon his knee, he used to sing more frequently than any other, because the child, then in the most winning stage of childhood, liked it best of all, and it went to the tune of “God save great George our King” as happily as if that noble tune had been composed for it. The words were,
Fa la la lerridan,
Dan dan dan derridan,
Dan dan dan derridan,
Derridan dee.
To what old ditty they formed the burden I know not, nor whether it may be (as I suspect) a different reading of “Down, down, down derry down,” which the most learned of living Welshmen supposes to be a Druidical fragment: but the frequent repetition of his own abbreviated name seldom failed to excite in the child one of those hearty and happy laughs which are never enjoyed after that blessed age has past. Most of us have frequently laughed till our sides ached, and many not unfrequently it may be feared laugh till their hearts ache. But the pure, fresh, unalloyed innocent laughter of children, in those moods when they
——seem like birds, created to be glad,2—
that laughter belongs to them and to them only. We see it and understand it in them; but nothing can excite more than a faint resemblance of it in ourselves.
2 GONDIBERT.