p. 550 we have several versions of the familiar English folk-prayer—
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.”
Among nursery rhymes, we find, at p. 555, one about a cat, conceived much in the same form as our English one—
“Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, where have ye been?
I’ve been to Lunnun to see the queen.
Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, what did you there?
Eat up the little mouse under her chair.”
Some nonsense verses, p. 561, are identical in form with some given by Bolognini at the beginning of his collection.
Bolognini is also strong in popular lyrical compositions. Although his volume has rather the genial character of the mountaineer’s writing than the scholarly tone in which the other two volumes are conceived, it is yet an invaluable collection, for the writer is guided by the true instincts of a born folk-lorist; he knows and loves the people and enjoys their confidence, and he writes down what he receives from them exactly as they give it him, never led astray into improving on their diction.
It is of course in the work of Count Nigra that the chief scientific interest must be sought, and English folk-lorists will have to make themselves masters of his deductions, whether for adhesion or discussion, before they can arrive at any classification of European folk-songs.
