Pretty and tender to a degree, as all children
feel the conclusion of the story of the Babes in
the Wood—with its pathetic illustration of
the two children lying side by side, asleep or
dead, and the robins covering them with leaves
—the previous part of the story narrates the
dishonest and murderous intentions of the
cruel uncle with abominable distinctness, to
say nothing of the preparations for their
murder by one of the men hired for that
purpose, with his fight, and death by the hand
of the other servant.

Nothing seems quite satisfactory without a
death. The highly interesting and eventful
narrative poem of "Froggy would a-wooing
go," terminates with several deaths; the heroic
brevity of "Jack and Jill" involves a broken
neck or a cracked crown, if not both; and the
cumulative lyric of "The House that Jack
Built," and the companion song of "A Kid—
a Kid," comprises various killings, besides
bull-tossing and cat-worrying. These things
are considerably overlooked, by reason of the
comic images presented, and the rapid recurrence
of comic rhymes; but there they are.
Sometimes, however, the song takes a more
abrupt and savage tone:—

"Tit—tat—toe—
My first go:
Three jolly butcher boys all in a row!
Stick one up—
Stick one down—
Stick one in the old man's burying-ground!"

Grim, gloomy, vague, and leaving the child's
imagination to fill up the picture. Here is a
lighter one—

"The Fox, when he came to the Farmer's gate,
Who should he see but the Farmer's drake:
'I love you so well for your master's sake,
And I long to be picking your bones, O!' "

This nice suggestion is presently followed
by a shot through the Fox's head. But the
question of "capital punishment" for an
offence, is nothing in the nursery code of song-writing;
innocence and guilt all fare alike.

"Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home;
Your house is on fire!—your children alone—
They are all burnt but one," &c.

A tailor intends to kill a crow, for no other
offence than watching how he made a coat!—

"Wife, bring me my arrow and my bow,
That I may shoot that old carrion crow,
Sing heigh, sing ho, &c.
The tailor he shot, but he miss'd his mark,
And shot his own sow right through the heart!"

Here is another,—

"The woodcock and the sparrow;
The little dog has burnt his tail—
And he must be hanged to-morrow!"

What a sense of justice is conveyed in the
above! And here follows a pretty lullaby—

"Bye baby bumpkin,
Where's Tony Lumpkin?
My lady's on her death-bed,
With eating half a pumpkin."

No wonder; but a charming picture of
greediness. Here is a death from a very different
cause—

"Little John Jig Jag
Rode on a penny nag,
And went to Wigan to woo;
When he came to a beck
He fell and broke his neck—
Johnny, how dost thou now?"

The number of acts of utterly unprovoked
and wanton violence which may be found in
Mr. Halliwell's but too faithful Collection—
such as knocking out the teeth, shooting, cutting,
and pecking off noses, cracking of crowns,
eatings-up alive, bruising, maiming, and mutilating,
with the wholesale John Ball, who
"shot them all!"—is something quite amazing
to those who look through the book. No
innocent or beautiful object is spared by our
old Witch:

"The white dove sat on the castle wall;
I bend my bow—and shoot her I shall!" &c.—
Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes."

Even the baby in the cradle is demolished,—

"Hush-a-by Baby,
All on the tree-top!
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock;
When the boughs break,
The cradle will fall,—
Down tumbles hush-a-by Baby, and all!"

Bravo! excellent fun—a smashed baby!—
well done old Nursery Witch! In short, the
grand staple commodity of the nursery songs
and tales of England, and we fear of many
other nations, is death, or the excitement of
killing something. Even the best of these—the
most heroic, with the least amount of ghastly
horror or barbarity—such as "Jack the Giant-killer,"
the "Forty Thieves," "St. George and
the Dragon," &c., contain a plentiful amount
of slaughter in a variety of ways; so that the
nursery literature may be said to be quite
steeped in imaginary blood. Giants, monsters,
men, women, children, birds, beasts and fish,
all are brought to the nursery by its tutelar
Witch, and there slain under every variety of
romantic or questionable circumstance.

We shall, no doubt, be reminded that
children do not attach such distinct notions to
these things as grown-up people; that they
do not realise these horrors to their minds;
that they, in a certain sort, comprehend them
as things of fancy, and "make-believe."
Heaven preserve us all, if this were not so!
We should all become Guerilla soldiers, or
Gordon Cummings at the very best, if it were
otherwise; and probably thieves and Thugs,
so far as education and early tastes are
concerned. But we are well aware that