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BALLAD OPERAS AND BALLADS 53
the well-known duet "All's Well!" which was constantly sung by Braham and Incledon with tremendous effect, and, in more recent times, by Santley and Sims Reeves.
Dibdin died in 1814, and was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Camden Town, and a verse from " Tom Bowling" formed his epitaph :—
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft, Faithful below he did his duty,
But now he's gone aloft.
His son, Thomas Dibdin, was a well-known dramatist, and wrote the words of the once popular song "A Right Little Tight Little Island " in 1797, when Napoleon was threatening invasion. The words were set to the melody of "The Rogues' March."
In his memoirs Thomas Dibdin says that he wrote a burletta to ridicule the collecting of troops and boats at Boulogne, entitled The British Raft, for which the manager of Sadler's Wells paid him five guineas, and adds : " One song in it, 'The Snug Little Island,' was so successful that I sold it to Longman and Co., of Cheapside, for fifteen guineas, three times the price of the whole burletta ! Mr. Longman told me afterwards the house cleared nine hundred pounds by this song." |
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