Sing go trix,
Trim go trix,
Under the greenwood tree.
While a celebrated political ballad is known by its nonsense chorus,
Lilliburlero bullin a-la.
Mother Goose rhymes abound in these nonsense refrains, and they are often fine examples of onomatopoeia.
By far the most meritorious and most interesting kind of nonsense is that which embodies an absurd or ridiculous idea, and treats it with elaborate seriousness. The greatest masters of this art are undoubtedly Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. These Englishmen were men of genius, deep thinkers, and hard workers.
Lear was an artist draughtsman, his subjects being mainly ornithological and zoological. Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson) was an expert in mathematics and a lecturer on that science in Christ Church, Oxford.
Both these men numbered among their friends many of the greatest Englishmen of the day. Tennyson was a warm friend and admirer of each, as was also John Ruskin.
Lear's first nonsense verses, published in 1846, are written in the form of the well-known stanza beginning:
There was an old man of Tobago.
This type of stanza, known as the "Limerick," is said by a gentleman who speaks with authority to have flourished in the reign of William IV. This is one of several he remembers as current at his public school in 1834: