Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 2

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

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	REIGN OF CHARLES II.	551
	Chester Waits, from Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master, iii. 36.
	Other tunes of the Waits might he added, as Worksop Waites, from Musical MSS., No. 610, Brit. Mus.; York Waits, from the broadsides ; Bristol Waits, from Apollo's Banquet, &c.; but the preceding four specimens will probably be thought sufficient. AN OLD WOMAN POOR AND BLIND. This is one of the ballads that were printed by W. Thackeray, in the reign of Charles II., and subsequently by Play ford and his successors, in all the editions of Pills to purge Melancholy, with the tune. There are several other ballads to the air in the Pills, and among them, one on The Cries of London, beginning, " Come, buy my greens and flowers fine; " and a second, The crafty Cracks of Hast Smithfield. The latter has the burden of Pin plunder'd of all my gold. The tune was introduced into several of the ballad-operas, such as The Village Opera, 1729, and The Fashionable Lady, or Harlequin's Opera, 1730; sometimes in minor, sometimes in a major key. In the Bagford Collection of Ballads, are the following:— " The toothless Bride," &c, " to the tune of An old woman poor and blind." " The Deptford Plumb Cake; or, The Four Merry Wives. Tune, An old ioon>an poor and blind." In A Pill to purge State Melancholy, v. ii., 1718, "Here's a health to great Eugene; " a song on Prince Eugene's routing the Turks, to the same air. The following is " A Dialogue between Jack and his Mother. Tune of- Old looman poor and blind;" copies of which are in the Roxburghe and other collections.