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SONGS AND BALLADS |
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P. 149. The Death of Admiral Benbow. Printed by Halliwell, Early Naval Ballads, 'from a broadside printed at Salisbury by Fowler, a noted ballad printer of the last century.' A chapbook printed at Edinburgh in 1823 supplies some variants in verses 1-7, and adds verses 8-10. Some of these variants have been adopted in the text, especially in verses 4 and 7, where they supply the rhymes missing in Halliwell's version. The three verses given in brackets are evidently a later addition.
In verse 4 ' Noah's Ark' is perhaps a nickname, but more probably a corruption of the name of Benbow's flagship, the. Breda. In the report of the trial it is called throughout the" ' Bredah,' and the accentuation of the last syllable would account for the appearance of ' Ark.' No doubt the line originally ran ' 'Twas the Ruby and Bredah.'
For the tune see Chappell, Old English Popular Music, ii. 94.
P. 151. Sailor's Account of the Action at Vigo. From the collection of the Earl of Crawford. A broadside printed by Sam. Farley of Exeter.
P. 153. On the Sea Fight between Sir G. R. and Toulouse. Poems on Affairs of State, ed. 1716, iii. 112.
P. 153. A Song on the Same. lb., p. "113.
P. 154. The Sailor's Tragedy. From the Douce collection in'the Bodleian Library {The Sea-faring Garland: Douce P. P. 183).
P. 156. The Valiant Admiral. lb.
P. 158. The Sea-Fight, or the French Prize taken. From The Diverting Muse, or the Universal Medley, part vi., 1707.
P. 159. The Dismal Lamentation, &c. From the Douce
collection in the Bodleian Library (The New Portsmouth and Spithead Garland: Douce P. P. 183). On the accident see Clowes ii. 529.
P. 162. The Sailor's Complaint. Text from a volume of songs called The Nightingale, printed in 1738. A nineteenth-century version from a broadside is given in Ashton's Real Sailor Songs, p. 65*. For the tune see Chappell, Old English Popular Music, ed. Wooldridge, ii. 165.
P. 163. Fair Sally. Text from A Collection of Diverting Songs, published about 1740, p. 217 Another version, which substitutes ' seaman ' for 'sailor,' may be found at p. 174 of the collection called The Lark, published in 1740, and also in Ashton's Real Sailor Songs, p. 63. '
P. 164. ' How Pleasant a Sailor's Life Passes.' From
A Collection of Diverting Songs. Also in Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, p. 168, where it is entitled The Sailor's Rant. |
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