There was a young lady sat down to sleep; She wants a young gentleman to wake her up; Mr. ---- ---- shall be his name. The awakening was then effected by a kiss. The same game comes to us as a negro sport from Galveston, Texas, but in a form which shows it to be the corruption of an old English round: Here we go round the _strawberry bush_, This cold and frosty morning. Here's a young lady sat down to sleep, This cold and frosty morning. She wants a young gentleman to wake her up, This cold and frosty morning. Write his name and send it by me, This cold and frosty morning. Mr. ---- his name is called, This cold and frosty morning. Arise, arise, upon your feet, This cold and frosty morning. Some unintelligible negro rhymes follow. The refrain of the last version indicates that it is of old English origin, and was used as a May-game. It would appear, from the character of the round, that various names are proposed to the sleeping girl, which she rejects until a satisfactory one is presented. At all events, this is the case in a Provençal game which we take to be of the same origin as ours. In this game it is explained that the girl is not asleep, but counterfeiting death. "Alas! what shall we give our sister? N. N. to be her husband." A favorite French round describes the maiden as asleep "in the tower." The pretty song represents her as awakened by the rose her lover has left upon her breast. Though there is no very close resemblance between this and the Provençal game, the same idea of deliverance from enchantment appears to underlie both. We infer, therefore, that the game, apparently so natural an invention, originally represented some form of the world-wide story of the "Sleeping Beauty." If this be so, to explain its history would lead us to write of Northern lay and mediæval legend; we should have to examine the natural symbolism of primitive religions, and the loves of ancient gods. The kissing-romp of a New England village would be connected with the poetry and romance of half the world. In any case, this interlinking of the New World with all countries and ages, by the golden network of oral tradition, may supply the moral of our collection. FOOTNOTES: [127] Die Holländisch' Brück'. [128] Mrs. R. W. Emerson, of Concord, Mass. [129] From Prof. G. J. Webb, now of New York, who learned it from his mother, in the Isle of Wight, his birthplace.