Nursery Rhyme. CXXVIII. Scholastic.

        [The joke or the following consists in saying it so quick that it cannot be told whether it is English or gibberish. It is remarkable that the last two lines are quoted in MS. Sloan. 4, of the fifteenth century, as printed in the 'Reliq. Antiq.,' vol. i, p. 324.]

    In fir tar is,
    In oak none is.
    In mud eel is,
    In clay none is.
    Goat eat ivy,
    Mare eat oats.

        [The dominical letters attached to the first days of the several months are remembered by the following lines.]

    At Dover Dwells George Brown Esquire,
    Good Christopher Finch, And David Friar.

        [An ancient and graver example, fulfilling the same purpose, runs as follows.]

    Astra Dabit Dominus, Gratisque Beabit Egenos,
    Gratia Christicolæ Feret Aurea Dona Fideli.

        Cross patch,
        Draw the latch,
    Sit by the fire and spin;
        Take a cup,
        And drink it up,
    Then call your neighbours in.

    Ride a cock-horse to Banbury-cross,
        To see what Tommy can buy;
    A penny white loaf, a penny white cake,
        And a twopenny apple-pie.

    Intery, mintery, cutery-corn,
    Apple seed and apple thorn;
    Wine, brier, limber-lock,
    Five geese in a flock,
    Sit and sing by a spring,
    O-U-T, and in again.

    Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
        How does your garden grow?
    With cockle-shells, and silver bells,
        And mussels all a row.