Charles Knowles Bolton
Published: 2015-08-04
Total Pages: 116
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Excerpt from The Smile on the Face of the Tiger: A Collection of Limericks The Limerick shares the fate of Homer, and we search in vain for a certified pedigree. In Ireland many years ago it was the custom at drinking parties to engage in convivial verse-contests. A singer would improvise a line, followed in chorus by the refrain: Will you come up, come up? Will you come up to Limerick? A rival singer, then taking the lead, would add a line to cap or match the first, its last word rhyming with the end of the former line. The success of a brilliant sally of wit was instantaneous, and such success is sweet. The song went merrily and the cup passed cheerily. This, they would have us understand, was the ancient origin of the Limerick. And, as it was not bred in a cloister, we may well believe the solemn assertion that it "is a far from blameless production." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.