or burden of many songs, as fools are
wont."

Amongst the many rhymes enumerated by Moros, which he claims were taught
to him by his mother, occur: "Broome on the hill," "Robin lend me thy
bow," "There was a maid came out of Kent," "Dainty love, dainty love,"
"Come o'er the bourne, Bessie," and

"Tom a Lin, and his wife and his wife's mother,
They all went over the bridge together;
The bridge was broken and they fell in,
'The devil go with all,' quoth Tom a Lin."

Another version, more particularly the Irish one, runs--

"Bryan O'Lynn, and his wife and wife's mother,
All went over the bridge together;
The bridge was loose, they all fell in,
'What a precious concern,' cried Bryan O'Lynn.

"Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,
So he got a sheep's skin to make him a pair."

This rhyme is evidently much older than the Tudor age, and one is
reminded of the time when cloth and woollen goods were not much used by
the lower classes. The Tzigane of Hungary to-day wears his sheep-skin
breeches, and hands them down to posterity, with a plentiful supply of
quick-silver and grease to keep them soft and clean. "Bye baby bunting"
and the little "hare skin" is the other nursery rhyme having a
reference to skins of animals being used for clothing. But "Baby
bunting" has no purpose to point to, unless indeed the habits of the
Esquimaux are taken in account. In the list of nursery songs sung by
children in Elizabeth's reign, the following extract from "The longer
thou livest the more foole thou art" gives four:--

"I have twentie mo songs yet,
A fond woman to my mother;
As I war wont in her lappe to sit,
She taught me these and many other.

"I can sing a song of 'Robin Redbreast,'
And 'My litle pretie Nightingale,'
'There dwelleth a Jolly Fisher here by the west,'
Also, 'I com to drink som of you Christmas ale.'

"Whan I walke by myselfe alone,
It doth me good my songs to render;
Such pretie thinges would soone be gon
If I should not sometime them remembre."

To get back again to the true nursery lyrics, one more marriage game of
this period is given, entitled--

"WE'LL HAVE A WEDDING AT OUR HOUSE."

"A cat came fiddling out of a barn
With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;
She could pipe nothing but fiddle-cum-fee,
The mouse hath married the bumble-bee.
Pipe, cat; dance, mouse;
We'