Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul.
We ne’er shall see him more;
He used to wear a long blue coat
All buttoned down before.
I heard this old song sung when I was a lad going to school, about 1825. So that if “Old Grimes” was dead in 1825 your correspondent is mistaken in stating that he has seen and known the “real Old Grimes.” Again, the real “Old Grimes” is said, in the rhyme, to be a “good old soul;” but C. N. H. states that “Ephraim Grimes was a dealer in counterfeit money, was convicted, imprisoned, and had the tip of his right ear taken off and was banished the State.” Not a very “good old soul,” was he?
H. H. H.
Answer.—The article above referred to, as from “C. N. H.,” was not published in Our Curiosity Shop. Beyond doubt the subject of the rhyme quoted was not the Grimes who died in Connecticut in 1834. The original Grimes was first immortalized by the English poet Crabbe, who was born in 1754 and died in 1832. Grimes was the subject of one of his tales in rhyme. Later, the American poet Albert G. Greene, of Rhode Island, wrote the humorous ballad which has rendered “Old Grimes” familiar to every American boy and girl.
LORD CHANCELLOR AND CHIEF JUSTICE.
Mattoon, Ill.