Jog on, Jog on
(Shakespeare?, Hanskin)

Jog on, jog on, the footpath way
And merrily hent the style-a
Your merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

Your paltry money bags of gold,
What need have we to stare for,
When little or nothing soon is told
And we have less to care for.

Cast care away, let sorrow cease!
A fig for melancholy:
Let's laugh and sing, or, if you please
We'll frolic with sweet Dolly.

"The first lines of this ditty are sung by Autolycus the Pedlar,
and "picker up of unconsidered trifles" in Shakespeare's Winter's
Tale (about 1610), Act IV, Scene 2. Whether the latter portion
of this song was also by him (nay, more, whether he wrote or merely
quoted even the four opening lines), cannot be determined. We prefer
to believe that from his hand alone came the fragment at least.
- this lively snatch of melody with good philosophy, such as the
ascetics reject to their own damage. No wrong is done in accepting
the remainder of the song as genuine. The final verse is
orthodox, according to the Autolycusian rule of faith. It is
in "Windsor Drollery," p. 30 and in the introduction to
"Westminster Drollery," p. xxxv. The air is included in
"Pills to Purge Melancholy" 1707, v.2, n32, and the first verse
of words only in "The Academy of Compliments" 1664.
Above quoted from Edmonstoune Duncan's "the Minstrelsy of
England." 1905. WBO

[tune: Hanskin]

WBO
oct97