Children’s Songs and Ballads
Not the more exalted songs of child life here—not “Willie Winkie,” and “Cuddle Doon,” and “Castles in the Air,” and all that widely esteemed band, which, collectively, would themselves tax the limits of a large volume—but some of the ruder ditties only which the children for many generations have delighted to sing, and been no less charmed by hearing sung, and which of late have not been so frequently seen in print. These rude old favourites, too, with slight comment—little being required. And of such, surely “Cock Robin” may well be awarded the place of honour—a song which, together with the more elaborate tale of “The Babes in the Wood,” has done more to make its pert and dapper red-waistcoated subject the general favourite he is with old and young, than any virtue that may be claimed for the little tyrant himself.