He said he would do as much work in a day
As his wife could do in three.”
The idea was used by the author of a farce called Domestic Economy, in which that eminent comedian, Mr. Edward Wright, formerly signalised his genius; but the true original, both germ and substance, is a jocular invention of at least the fifteenth century, and what we see before us is an elaborate amplification, reminding us of the difference between a country and the map of it drawn to scale, or between a tragedy in five acts and the slender plot.
The evidence which the Nursery Rhyme so often supplies of having once belonged to a remote literature and society, is not directly relevant to the present subject. But it seemed to enter into my scheme to draw attention to this among the many repertories in which the all-pervading Jest is to be found in new attire—to the hidden properties which may reside in popular trifles, and to the strange mutations which a certain section of folk-lore has undergone in the process of transmission to us. A jeu d’esprit of Ben Jonson, which was not impossibly an affiliation in his case, leaves its last echo, as it were, in a witticism still more degrees below proof,—videlicet, the following:—
“I’ll sing you a song,
Though not very long,
Yet I think it as pretty as any;
Put your hand in your purse,
You’ll never be worse,
And give the poor singer a penny.”