Of course, it was the spice deserved blame, not the liquor (as Sam Weller observed, on a similar occasion, “Somehow it always is the salmon”). Those who remember (at the Johnson in Fleet Street, or among the Harmonist Society of Edinburgh) the suggestive lingering over the first syllable of the word “gin-ger,” when “this song is well sung,” cannot willingly relinquish the half-line. It is a genuine relic, for it also occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” about 1613, Act i. sc. 3; where chirping Old Merrythought, “who sings with never a penny in his purse,” gives it thus, while “singing and hoiting” [i.e., skipping]:—
Nose, nose, jolly red nose,
And who gave thee this jolly red nose?
Cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,
And they gave me this jolly red nose.
And we know, by A Booke of Merrie Riddles, 1630, and 1631, that it was much sung:
—then Ale-Knights should
To sing this song not be so bold,
Nutmegs, Ginger, Cinamon and Cloves,
They gave us this jolly red nose.