All who are acquainted with the early lyrical literature of England and Scotland, preserved in the songs and ballads of the days immediately before and after Shakspere, must sometimes have asked themselves the meaning of such old choruses as "_Down, down, derry down_," "_With a fal, lal, la_" "_Tooral, looral_," "_Hey, nonnie, nonnie_," and many others. These choruses are by no means obsolete, though not so frequently heard in our day as they used to be a hundred years ago. "_Down, down, derry down_," still flourishes in immortal youth in every village alehouse and beershop where the farm labourers and mechanics are accustomed to assemble. One of the greatest living authorities on the subject of English song and music--Mr William Chappell--the editor of the Popular Music of the Olden Time, is of opinion that these choruses, or burdens, were "mere nonsense words that went glibly off the tongue." He adds (vol. i., page 223), "I am aware that '_Hey down, down, derry down_,' has been said to be a modern version of '_Ha, down, ir, deri danno_,' the burden of an old song of the Druids, signifying, Come let us haste to the oaken grove (Jones, Welsh Bards, vol. i., page 128), but this I believe to be mere conjecture, and that it would now be impossible to prove that the Druids had such a song." That Mr Chappell's opinion is not correct, will, I think, appear from the etymological proofs of the antiquity of this and other choruses afforded by the venerable language which was spoken throughout the British Isles by the aboriginal people for centuries before the Roman invasion, and which is not yet extinct in Wales, in Ireland, in the Isle of Man, and in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.