"Spanish Jack (or coxcomb) is not my name,
I'll stamp my foot (stamps) and say the same.
So fare thee well," &c.
"Come back! come back! you Spanish knight.
And choose the fairest in your sight."
The dukes retired, consulted together, and then selected one, singing—
"This is the fairest I can see,
So pray young damsel walk with me."
When all the daughters had been taken away, they were brought back to their mother in the same order, the dukes chanting:—
"We've brought your daughter, safe and sound,
And in her pocket a thousand pound,
And on her finger a gay gold ring,
We hope you won't refuse to take her in."
"I'll take her in with all my heart.
For she and 'me' were loth to part."
The Rev. S. Rundle, vicar of Godolphin, near Helston, saw some children lately in his neighbourhood playing a portion of this game, when to "Here comes three dukes a-riding" they added—"My rancy, dancy dukes." Mr. Halliwell Phillips, in his Nursery Rhymes and Tales of England, has published three versions of it, but the game as played in Cornwall has some additional couplets.
Pray, pretty Miss.
For this—quite, I think, a thing of the past—the children (a boy and girl alternately) formed a ring. One stood in the middle holding a white handkerchief by two of its corners: if a boy he would single out one of the girls, dance backwards and forwards opposite to her, and sing—
"Pray, pretty Miss, will you come out?
Will you come out? will you come out?
Pray, pretty Miss, will you come out.
To help me in my dancing?"
