Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/275

Rh A few years later Robert Herrick wrote:

I may be pardoned for repeating his prayer to Robin:

In Webster's lines, and in many a popular rhyme, the robin and the wren are coupled as though they were natural helpmates; and with equal disregard of propriety Drayton talks of—

but here, I suspect, there is some political allusion. He does, however, make the Wren,

confess that Robin is not her lawful mate; a state of things which never used to be suspected in the nursery, whatever may be the case in these enlightened days. She also tells her gossip, the Hedge-sparrow, that when the Eagle oils his feathers and soars aloft to confer with Jove, he unwittingly bears, concealed among his down, her nimble Robinet, who thus hears the secrets of Olympus, which, with untired wings, he carries back to his paramour;

Politics again, perhaps; but nevertheless there seems to be a savour of the old story of how the wren became king. If I may tell it as I