"True, Edric dear! you make very just observations sometimes. Well, but the ballads; I was going to show you my treasures,--my jewels! as the Roman lady said of her children. Look what beautiful specimens these are! A little torn here and there, and with a few of the lines illegible--but genuine antiques. I'll warrant every one of them above three hundred years old. Look, it is real linen paper; you may tell it by the texture; and then the spelling, see what a number of letters they put into their words that were of no use. Look at the titles of them. Here is the 'Tragical end of poor Miss Bailey'--and here 'Cherry Ripe'--and 'I've been roaming.' Here is 'The loves of Captain Wattle and Miss Roe'--and here are 'Jessy the flower of Dumblane,' and 'Dunois the brave.' But this is my Phœnix--here is what will be the envy of collectors! here is my invaluable treasure. This, I believe, is absolutely unique, and that I am so blest as to possess the only copy extant. The date is wanting, but the manners it describes are so unpolished, that I should almost think it might be traced back to the times of the aboriginal Britons.--Thus it begins:-- 'At Wednesbury there was a cocking, A match between Newton and Scroggins; The nailers and colliers left work, And to Spittle's they all went jogging. Tol de rol lol.' I used to be very much puzzled at this burthen, which is one of frequent recurrence in ancient songs. At first, I thought it a relic of some language now irrevocably lost. Then it struck me, it might be an invocation to the deities of the aborigines. In short, I was quite perplexed, and knew not what to think, when a learned friend of mine hit upon an idea the other day, which seems completely to solve the difficulty. He suggests that it was an ancient manner of running up and down the scale; and that 'Tol de rol lol' had the same signification as 'Do re mi fa;'--which solution is at once so simple and ingenious, that I am sure you, as well as myself, must be struck by it. I here omit a few stanzas, in which the author enumerates his heroes exactly in the Homeric manner. The names are so barbarous, that I am afraid of loosening my teeth in pronouncing them:-- 'There was plenty of beef at the dinner, Of a bull that was baited to death; Bunny Hyde got a lump in his throat, Which had like to have stopt his breath.' What a beautiful simplicity there is in that last line, 'Which had like to have stopt his breath.' Oh, we moderns have nothing equal to it!-- 'The company fell in confusion, To see this poor Bunny Hyde choke, So they hurried him down to the kitchen, And held his head over the smoke.'