The _Chenodia_, now first printed, an experiment for the author’s own amusement, partly in classic verse of various metres, partly in mediæval and unclassic rhyme, and partly, like the original English, in no metre at all, is tendered as an offset for any disparagement of the dead languages contained in two essays read in 1865 and 1866, at a time when classical studies were paramount in Harvard University and other colleges of the United States.
[Footnote A: There appears to be some reason for believing that at least a century before Gammer Gurton’s works were published in England, a bodily “Mother Goose” was at work on the other side of the Channel. In Scott’s novel of “Woodstock,” chapter 28, Charles II., then a fugitive, says: “It reminds me, like half the things I meet with in this world, of the ‘Contes de Commère l’Oye.’” Not having been able to obtain a sight of “Commère l’Oye,” we must leave the original claim for authorship as a field for future controversy.]
Sprattus et Uxor 9 Par Avium 10 Rex Arthurus 11 Mors Turdo-Galli 12 Puer Cæruleus 13 Vetula Calceocola 14 Canis Kevensis 14 Diccora Dogium 15 Thomæ Quadrijugæ 16 Homunculus et Puellula 17 Bopipias 20 Advenæ Mendici 20 Lunicola 21 Magi Gothamenses 22 Jackus et Jilla 23 Felis in Fidibus 24 Grumbo Gigas 25 Miles Redux 26 Ansercula 27 Labor et Cura 28
Jack Spratt could eat no fat, His wife could eat no lean, And so between them both They licked the platter clean.
Sprattus horrescens adipem recusat, Uxor et non vult tolerare macrum: Conjuges digni! potuêre sic de- tergere lancem.
Σπράττος ὠμηστὴς στέαρ ἐξέλειπεν‧ Ἡ γυνὴ σφοδρῶς ἀπέφευγεν ἰσχνόν‧ Εὔγαμοι, δείπνῳ ταχέως ἕκαστος Πάντ’ ἀπολείχει.
Two little birds were sitting on a stone, One flew away and then there was one, T’ other flew away and then there was none, So the poor stone was left all alone.
One of the little birds back again flew, In came t’ other and then there were two; Says one bird to t’ other, “How do you do?” “Very well, I thank you; pray how do you?”
Fama est par avium venisse insistere saxo, Quarum primâ abeunte superstitit inde secunda: Illa autem fugiens jam vix vestigia liquit, Et saxum mœrens in campo luget inani.
Ecce autem rediens avium comparuit una, Altera non segnis sociam complectitur almam: Arreptâque manu, “Quid agis dulcissima rerum?” “Suaviter ut nunc est, et jam cupio omnia quæ vis.”