and wording of the song being evidently of a much later period than the
age of Henry VIII.;" and Buckingham's "mad" scheme of taking Charles
into Spain to woo the infanta is substituted. This is enforced by the
"burden of the song;" whilst another correspondent considers this
"chorus" to be an old one, analogous to "Down derry down:"--that is, M.
denies the force of MR. MAHONY's explanation altogether!

(Why MR. MAHONY calls a person in his "sixth decade" a "sexagenarian" he
best knows. Such is certainly not the ordinary meaning of the term he
uses. His pun is good, however.)

Then comes the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT, with a very decisive proof that
neither in the time of James I., nor of the Commonwealth, could it have
originated. His transcript from Mr. Collier's _Extracts_ carries it
undeniably back to the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Of course, it
is interesting to find intermediate versions or variations of the
ballad, and even the adaptation of its framework to other ballads of
recent times, such as "Heigho! says Kemble,"--one of the Drury Lane
"O.P. Row" ballads (_Rejected Addresses_, last ed., or Cunningham's
_London_). Why the conjecture respecting Henry VIII. is so
contemptuously thrown aside as a "fancy," I do not see. A _fancy_ is a
dogma taken up without proof, and in the teeth of obvious
probability,--tenaciously adhered to, and all investigation eschewed.
This at least is the ordinary signification of the term, in relation to
the search after truth. How far my own conjecture, or the mode of
putting it, fulfills these conditions, it is not necessary for me to
discuss: but I hope the usefulness and interest of the "NOTES AND
QUERIES" will not be marred by any discourtesy of one correspondent
towards another.