‘What is it to me who you can have? I shall not be long ere I’m laid in my grave; And when I am dead you may find if you can, One that’ll spin as hard as I’ve done. Tread the wheel, tread the wheel, dan, don, dell O.’ ‘Come, come, my dear wife, here endeth my song, I hope it has pleased this numerous throng; But if it has missed, you need not to fear, We’ll do our endeavour to please them next year. Tread the wheel, tread the wheel, dan, don, dell O.’ THE SWEARING-IN SONG OR RHYME. As formerly sung or said at Highgate, in the county of Middlesex. [THE proverb, ‘He has been sworn at Highgate,’ is more widely circulated than understood. In its ordinary signification it is applied to a ‘knowing’ fellow who is well acquainted with the ‘good things,’ and always helps himself to the best; and it has its origin in an old usage still kept up at Highgate, in Middlesex. Grose, in his _Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, London, 1785, says,— A ridiculous custom formerly prevailed at the public-houses of Highgate, to administer a ludicrous oath to all the men of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns fastened on a stick; the substance of the oath was never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, with many other injunctions of the like kind to all of which was added a saving clause—_Unless you like it best_! The person administering the oath was always to be called father by the juror, and he in return was to style him son, under the penalty of a bottle.