like ample and
exclusive fashion the _natural literature_ of the children of Scotland,
and meets what has long appealed to me as decidedly a felt want. The
earlier pages are occupied with a commentary, textually illustrated, on
the generally puerile, but regularly fascinating Rhymes of the Nursery,
the vitality and universal use of which have been at once the wonder and
the puzzle of the ages. This is followed in turn by a chapter on
Counting-out Rhymes, with numerous examples, home and foreign; which is
succeeded, appropriately, by a section of the work embracing description
of all the well-known out-door and in-door Rhyme-Games--in each case the
Rhyme being given, the action being portrayed. The remaining contents
the title may be left to suggest. I may only add that the
Stories--including "Blue Beard," and "Jack the Giant Killer," and their
fellow-narratives--ten in all--are printed _verbatim_ from the old
chapbooks once so common in the country, but now so rare as to be almost
unobtainable.

Essentially a book about children and their picturesque and innocent,
though often apparently meaningless, frolics, by the young in the land,
I am assured, it will be received with open arms. From the "children of
larger growth"--those who were once young and have delight in
remembering the fact--the welcome, if less boisterous, should be not
less sincere. Commend to me on all occasions the man or woman who, "with
lyart haffets thin and bare," can sing with the poet--

"Och hey! gin I were young again,
Ochone! gin I were young again;
For chasin' bumbees owre the plain
Is just an auld sang sung again."

ROBERT FORD.

287 ~Onslow Drive~,
~Dennistoun~,
~Glasgow~.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

~Rhymes of the Nursery~, 9

~Counting-out Rhymes~, 38

~Children's Rhyme-Games~, 55

"Merry-ma-Tanzie," 56

"The Mulberry Bush," 57

"A Dis, a Dis, a Green Grass," 58

"Looby Looby," 59

"I Dree I Droppit it," 60

"Bab at the Bowster," 61

"Th