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132 The National Music of America.
This has not been traced in the slightest degree; the whole story is apocryphal.
It has been said that the melody was first used in the time of Charles II. to the words,
" Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it, Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it."
It is true that this nursery rhyme fits well to the melody, but Lucy Locket is evidently a name taken from the "Beggar's Opera," written in 1727, and Kitty Fischer (as the name was spelled) died in 1771, which removes the matter a half century and more beyond the reign of Charles II.
Thirdly, it has been stated that the tune is sung in Holland, generally by the harvesters, and that it might have come thence. Spite of the ridicule that has been thrown upon this theory, we can state that part of the tune is well known in the Netherlands, although, as yet, its antiquity is not ascer- |
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