Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book

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REIGN OF ELIZABETH.
183
Patrick Carey also wrote a ballad to the tune of Phillida flouts me ; beginning__
" Ned ! she that likes thee now, Next week will leave thee.! " It is contained in his "Trivial Poems and Triolets, written in obedience to Mrs. Tomkin's commands, 20th August, 1651." In Walton's Angler, 1653, the Milkwoman asks, " What song was it, I pray ? Was it Come, shepherds, deck your heads, or As at noon Dulcina rested, or Phillida flouts me F "
The ballad of Phillida flouts me is in the Roxburghe Collection, ii. 142, and in the same volume, p. 24, "The Bashful Virgin, or The Secret Lover: tune of lam so deep in love, or Little boy, &c." It begins—
" 0 what a plague it is To be a lover; Being denied the bliss For to discover," &c. This appears to be also to the air of Phillida flouts me, although the first line of that ballad is " Oh! what a plague is love," not " I am so deep in love."
The words and music are in Watts' Musical Miscellany, ii. 132 (1729), and an answer, beginning, " 0 where's the plague in love." The tune is also in many of the ballad-operas, such as The Quaker's Opera, 1728 ; Love in a Biddle, 1729 ; Damon and Phillida, 1734, &c.
Ritson printed the words in his Ancient Songs, from a copy in The Theatre of Compliments, or New Academy, 1689, but did not discover the tune.