Part 2 — Part II., p. 74 (App. p. lv.) As Moss caught his Mare.
Reading edition
Not having had space at command, when giving a short Addit. Note on p. 408 of M. D. C., we now add a nursery rhyme (we should gladly have given another, which mentions catching the mare “Napping up a tree”). Perhaps the following may be the song reported as being sung in South Devon:—
Moss was a little man, and a little mare did buy, For kicking and for sprawling none her could come nigh; She could trot, she could amble, and could canter here and there, But one night she strayed away—so Moss lost his Mare. Moss got up next morning to catch her fast asleep, And round about the frosty fields so nimbly he did creep. Dead in a ditch he found her, and glad to find her there, So I’ll tell you by and bye, how Moss caught his mare. Rise! stupid, rise! he thus to her did say, Arise you beast, you drowsy beast, get up without delay, For I must ride you to the town, so don’t lie sleeping there, He put the halter round her neck—so Moss caught his mare.
As that prematurely wise young sceptic Paul Dombey declared, when a modern-antique Legend was proffered to him, “I don’t believe that story!” It is frightfully devoid of ærugo, even of æruca. It may do for South Devon, and for Aylesbury farmers over their “beer and bacca,” but not for us. The true Mosse found his genuine mare veritably “napping” (not dead), up a real tree.
In John Taylor’s “A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiqves,” 1641, his motto is (concerning Sam Howe lecturing from a tub),
The Cobler preaches and his Audience are As wise as Mosse was, when he caught his Mare.