Fancies Versus Fads

THE poet in the comic opera, it will be remembered (I hope), claimed for his sthetic authority that "Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll, if I pronounce itchaste." In face of a satire which still survives the fashion it satirized, it may requiresome moral courage seriously to pronounce it chaste, or to suggest that thenursery rhyme in question has really some of the qualities of an idyll. Of its chastity, in the vulgar sense, there need be little dispute, despite the scandal of theelopement of the dish with the spoon, which would seem as free from grossness asthe loves of the triangles. And though the incident of the cow may have somethingof the moonstruck ecstasy of Endymion, that also has a silvery coldness about itworthy of the wilder aspects of Diana. The truth more seriously tenable is that thisnursery rhyme is a complete and compact model of the nursery short story. Thecow jumping over the moon fulfils to perfection the two essentials of such a storyfor children. It makes an effect that is fantastic out of objects that are familiar; andit makes a picture that is at once incredible and unmistakable. But it is yet moretenable, and here more to the point, that this nursery rhyme is emphatically arhyme. Both the lilt and the jingle are just right for their purpose, and are worthwhole libraries of elaborate literary verse for children. And the best proof of itsvitality is that the satirist himself has unconsciously echoed the jingle even inmaking the joke. The metre of that nineteenth-century satire is the metre of thenursery rhyme. "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle" and "Hey diddle diddlewill rank as an idyll" are obviously both dancing to the same ancient tune; and thatby no means the tune the old cow died of, but the more exhilarating air to whichshe jumped over the moon.