A DILLER, a dollar, A ten o'clock scholar, What makes you come so soon? You used to come at ten o'clock, But now you come at noon. CXI. TELL tale, tit! Your tongue shall be slit, CXII. [The joke of the following consists in saying it so quick that it cannot be told whether it is English or gibberish. It is remarkable that the last two lines are quoted in MS. Sloan. 4, of the fifteenth century, as printed in the 'Reliq. Antiq.,' vol. i, p. 324.] IN fir tar is, In oak none is. Goat eat ivy, Mare eat oats. CXIII. [The dominical letters attached to the first days of the several months are remembered by the following lines.] AT Dover Dwells George Brown Esquire, Good Christopher Finch, And David Friar. [An ancient and graver example, fulfilling the same purpose, runs as follows.] Astra Dabit Dominus, Gratisque Beabit Egenos, Gratia Christicolæ Feret Aurea Dona Fideli. CXIV. BIRCH and green holly, boys, If Birch and green holly. CXV. WHEN V and I together meet, CXVI. MULTIPLICATION is vexation, The Rule of Three doth puzzle me, CXVII. [The following memorial lines are by no means modern. They occur, with slight variations, in an old play, called 'The Returne from Parnassus,' 4to, Lond. 1606; and another version may be seen in Winter's 'Cambridge Almanac' for 1635. See the Rara Mathematica,' p. 119.] THIRTY days hath September, CXVIII. My story's ended, CXIX. [On arriving at the end of a book, boys have a practice of reciting the following absurd lines, which form the word finis backwards and forwards, by the initials of the words,] FATHER Iohnson Nicholas Iohnson's sonSon Iohnson Nicholas Iohnson's Father. [To get to father Johnson, therefore, was to reach the end of the book.] CXX. THE rose is red, the grass is green; CXXI. CROSS patch, Draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin; Take a cup, And drink it up, Then call your neighbours in. CXXII. COME when you're called, CXXIII. SPEAK when you're spoken to, Shut the door after you, And turn to the wall! CXXIV. I LOVE my love with an A, because he's Agreeable. I hate him because he's Avaricious. He took me to the Sign of the Acorn, His name's Andrew, And he lives at Arlington. CXXV. [A laconic reply to a person who indulges much in supposition.] Were pots and pans, There would be no need for tinkers! |