Syne came the deuk, but and the drake;
The deuk took puddy, and garred him squaik.
Then cam in the carl cat,
Wi’ a fiddle on his back.
‘Want ye ony music here?’
The puddy he swam doun the brook;
The drake he catched him in his fluke.
The cat he pu’d Lord Rotten doun;
The kittens they did claw his croun.
But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’,
Crept into a hole beneath the wa’;
‘Squeak!’ quoth she, ‘I’m weel awa.’”
Doubtless Ravenscroft’s version is more ancient. A ballad entitled “A most strange weddinge of the frogge and the mouse” was licensed for printing in 1580.
Page [65]. “Lady, when I behold.”—Gracefully Paraphrased from an Italian original:—
“Quand’ io miro le rose,
Ch’in voi natura pose;
E quelle che v’ ha l’arte
Nel vago seno sparte;
Non so conoscer poi
Se voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi.”
Page [66]. John Danyel is supposed to have been a brother of Samuel Daniel, the poet. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music in 1604. “At the commencement of the reign of Charles the First he was one of the Court Musicians, and his name occurs among the ‘Musicians for the Lutes and Voices’ in a privy seal, dated December 20th, 1625, exempting the musicians belonging to the Court from the payment of subsidies” (Rimbault).
Page [68]. “Then all at once for our town cries.”—“I should imagine,” says Oliphant, “that there was occasionally a sort of friendly contention in the sports between neighbouring villages; which idea is rather corroborated by a passage from an old play called the ‘Vow-breaker’ by Samson, 1636: ‘Let the major play the hobby-horse an’ he will; I hope our Town lads cannot want a hobby-horse.’” In an old play. “The Country Girl,” (first printed in 1647), attributed to that shadowy personage Antony Brewer, we have an allusion to this pleasant form of rivalry:—