Nursery Rhyme. CCCCLXXXVI. Love And Matrimony.

    Little Jack Dandy-prat was my first suitor;
    He had a dish and a spoon, and he'd some pewter;
    He'd linen and woollen, and woollen and linen,
    A little pig in a string cost him five shilling.

        [This nursery song may probably commemorate a part of Tom Thumb's history, extant in a Little Danish work, treating of 'Swain Tomling, a man no bigger than a thumb, who would be    married to a woman three ells and three quarters long.' See Mr. Thoms' Preface to 'Tom & Lincoln,' p. xi.]

    I had a little husband,
        No bigger than my thumb;
    I put him in a pint pot,
        And there I bid him drum.

    I bought a little horse,
        That galloped up and down;
    I bridled him, and saddled him,
        And sent him out of town.

    I gave him some garters,
        To garter up his hose,
    And a little handkerchief,
        To wipe his pretty nose.

    Tommy Trot, a man of law,
    Sold his bed and lay upon straw:
    Sold the straw and slept on grass,
    To buy his wife a looking-glass.

    As I was going up Pippen-hill,
        Pippen-hill was dirty,
    There I met a pretty miss,
        And she dropt me a curtsey.

    Little miss, pretty miss,
        Blessings light upon you!
    If I had half-a-crown a day,
        I'd spend it all on you.

    Bonny lass, canny lass, willta be mine?
    Thou'se neither wesh dishes, nor sarrah ( serve) the swine,
    Thou sall sit on a cushion, and sew up a seam,
    And thou sall eat strawberries, sugar, and cream!

    There was a little maid, and she was afraid,
    That her sweetheart would come unto her;
    So she went to bed, and cover'd up her head
    And fasten'd the door with a skewer.