Ballad: RICHARD OF TAUNTON DEAN; OR, DUMBLE DUM DEARY.

[This song is very popular with the country people in every part of
England, but more particularly with the inhabitants of the counties
of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. The chorus is peculiar to
country songs of the West of England. There are many different
versions. The following one, communicated by Mr. Sandys, was taken
down from the singing of an old blind fiddler, 'who,' says Mr.
Sandys, 'used to accompany it on his instrument in an original and
humorous manner; a representative of the old minstrels!' The air
is in Popular Music. In Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England
there is a version of this song, called Richard of Dalton Dale.

The popularity of this West-country song has extended even to
Ireland, as appears from two Irish versions, supplied by the late
Mr. T. Crofton Croker. One of them is entitled Last New-Year's
Day, and is printed by Haly, Hanover-street, Cork. It follows the
English song almost verbatim, with the exception of the first and
second verses, which we subjoin:-


'Last New-Year's day, as I heard say,
Dick mounted on his dapple gray;
He mounted high and he mounted low,
Until he came to SWEET RAPHOE!
Sing fal de dol de ree,
Fol de dol, righ fol dee.
'My buckskin does I did put on,
My spladdery clogs, TO SAVE MY BROGUES!
And in my pocket a lump of bread,
And round my hat a ribbon red.'


The other version is entitled Dicky of Ballyman, and a note informs
us that 'Dicky of Ballyman's sirname was Byrne!' As our readers
may like to hear how the Somersetshire bumpkin behaved after he had
located himself in the town of Ballyman, and taken the sirname of
Byrne, we give the whole of his amatory adventures in the sister-
island. We discover from them, inter alia, that he had found 'the
best of friends' in his 'Uncle,'--that he had made a grand
discovery in natural history, viz., that a rabbit is a FOWL!--that
he had taken the temperance pledge, which, however, his Mistress
Ann had certainly not done; and, moreover, that he had become an
enthusiast in potatoes!

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