The Tuscan rhyme of,—

"Chiocciola, chiocciola marinella,
Butta fuori le tu' cornella!"

has been abused by our Witch into,—

"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal."

It is curious to trace in these nursery songs
the national tendencies of different races of
people. With us, the great majority are little
acts of physical force; with the Italians, the
nursery songs are for the most part little
love-ditties.

The grand theory of the nursery for
obtaining quiet; for causing a little one to go
to sleep "like a good child," as well as for
teaching it to be obedient when awake, is
almost invariably some dreadful threat, or
some actual terror. Here is a " Cradle
Song," (translated, we believe, from the
German), from the " Illustrated Book of
Songs for Children." One of the verses is
very beautiful:

"Sleep, baby, sleep;
The large stars are the sheep,
The little stars are the lambs, I guess,
The fair moon is the shepherdess.
Sleep, baby, sleep!"

Several other verses are also exceedingly
pretty, and to the purpose; but in case the
child should not by this time go to sleep, we
are furnished with the following:—

"Sleep, baby, sleep,
And cry not like a sheep,
Else will the sheep-dog bark and whine,
And bite this naughty child of mine.
Sleep, baby, sleep!

"Sleep, baby, sleep,
Away! and tend the sheep—
Away! thou black dog fierce and wild,
And do not wake my little child.
Sleep, baby, sleep!"

The little trembler in the cradle is thus
adroitly taught to "sham sleep," and not to
cry for fear of the black dog fierce and wild.

To give an adequate idea of the euphonious
dance of the doggrel nursery songs of a foreign
country is scarcely possible. We have therefore
not attempted to do so, with regard to the
German, and still less shall we venture it
with the French. But, by taking the liberty
of retaining the original chorus, which is obviously
quite untranslatable, we may venture
upon a verse from one of the favourite songs
of the Nursery-Witch of France.

"There was a little man,
All dressed in grey was he—
Carabi,
Ton, ton,
Carabon!
Neighbour Guillerie,
His death would you like to see?" &c.

The song proceeds in this strain through a
number of little adventures, varied according
to the inventive genius of the nurse, and
concluding with any sort of death which the
special Witch of the French nurseries may
take it into her head to imagine. The old song
of "Malbrouk" is also a favourite with children
in France. They take most delight in
his comical wars, and yet more in his death,
and his grand funeral procession—where "one
carries his great sabre," another his cocked
hat and feather, another his " leathern smalls,"
&c. Here also is a universal favourite among
nursery songs, well deserving to be so; but
we believe the French are indebted to us for
the original:—

"Petit Bo-Bouton
A perdu ses moutons,
Et ne sait pas qui les a pris;
O laissez-les tranquilles,
IIs viendront en ville,
Et chacun sa queue après lui."

It must, however, be observed that French
songs of this class are very few indeed; such
a thing as a collection of nursery songs does
not exist in France.

The modern French nursery tales, which are
at present most in vogue, are of an utterly
insipid description. They are precisely of
that kind of tame moral purpose, without
anything to excite the imagination, the feelings,
or the fancy, which have the least
degree of attraction for children. The titles
of many of them are sufficiently indicative
of their inanity. "L'Ami des Enfants," "Les
Délassements de l'Enfance," "Le Modèle des
Enfants," (only fancy a prosy little prig of
a model-child!) "Les Enfants studieux!"
&c. Out of a considerable number of little
volumes now on sale for children, we recently
looked through "Douze Historiettes, pour
les Enfants de six à huit ans" published
in Paris at La Libraire de l'Enfance et de
la Jeunesse. In these, and most other French
juvenile tales of our day, there is an utter
want of invention and of interest.

But it was not always so in France. Far
from it. Some of the most exciting, romantic,
graphic, and graceful of our own old stock of
fairy-tales are derived from the French; and
we are bound to add, some of those which,
from their horrors and cruelties, are the most
alarming to the apprehensive imagination of
children, filling them with vague terrors; thus
rendering them unable to be left alone in the
dark, and tending in other respects to injure
the healthy tone of the mind and feelings.
What will be said by some of our nursery-tale
loving grandmamas and old nurses, when they
hear that their old favourite story (and, alas!
ours too) of " Blue Beard," is of French
origin? Yes, Blue Beard, with his great red
face, staring round eyes, bushy eyebrows,
hungry remorseless mouth, his great loose
crimson Turkish trouser-bags, his yellow
slippers, his jewelled belt and turban, his long
beard, painted blue by no niggard hand, and
his immense broad crooked scymitar—this