R.S.S.
April 23. 1850.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
In my interleaved copy of Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes, I have the original song of the "Frog and Mouse" with three different melodies, and nonsense burthens, as sung by my excellent nurse, Betty Richens, whose name I hope to see immortalised in your pages.
"My Love and I for kisses played, &c." (No. 19. p. 302.).—The little jeu d'esprit which "Dr. RIMBAULT" has given from Paget's Common Place Book:—
"My love and I for kisses play'd,"
occurs in the MS. volume from which James Boswell extracted "Shakspeare's Verses on the King," but with a much better reading of the last couplet:—
"Nay then, quoth shee, is this your wrangling vaine?
Give mee my stakes, take your own stakes againe."
They are entitled, "Upon a Lover and his Mistris playing for Kisses," and are there without any name or signature. They remind us of Lilly's very elegant "Cupid and Campaspe."
The ballad, or rather ode, as Drayton himself entitles it:—