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556 ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
Tune of Cupid's Trappan. He commences thus;—
" I am a young man that do follow the plough, But of late I have found out an art, And can, when I please, with abundance of ease, Deprive any maid of her heart, Brave Boys, &c. In rejoinder to this, came " The Milkmaid's Resolution " (Rox., ii. 347):— " Let young men prate of what they j)lease, 'Cause women have been kind, They'll find no more such fools as these, To please each apish mind." Tune, Cupid's Trappan; commencing:—
" Of late I did hear a young man domineer, And vapour of what he could do, But I think he knew how to manage the plough,, Far better than maidens to woo, Brave Boys, &c. The tune is found in The Devil to pay ; in The Female Parson, or The Beau in the Suds; The Fashionable Lady, or Harlequin's Opera ; Love and Mevenge, or The Vintner outwitted; in Flora, and other ballad operas. It was also printed on broadsides to a song called The Twitcher, sung by Mr. Pack at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, commencing, " A Damsel I'm told." In some copies, the tune consists of but eight bars, as I printed it in National English Airs (p. 68 of the music), in others of eleven; when of eight bars, the burden " Brave Boys," and the repetition of the last line, are omitted, but all the ballads require them.
After the ballad operas, came a variety of other songs to be sung to it, of which I will only quote three stanzas of one which was in great favour in the last century, and is still occasionally to be heard. It is " Rural Sport," printed in The Musical Companion, or Lady's Magazine, 8vo., 1741, and in St. Cecilia, or The British Songster, 1782, commencing—
" The hounds are all out, and the morning does peep, Why, how now ? you sluggardly sot, How can you, how can you lie snoring a-sleep,
"While we all on horseback have got, Brave Boys, While we all on horseback have got ? I cannot get up, for the overnight's cup
So terribly lies in my head ; Besides, my wife cries, My dear, do not rise,
But cuddle rae longer in bed, Dear Boy, &c. Come, on with your boots, and saddle your mare,
Nor tire us with longer delay, The cry of the hounds and the sight of the hare Will chase all dull vapours away, Brave Boys, &c. The following is one of the ballads that were printed by Thackeray (Rox. iii. 100) : " The patient Husband and the scolding Wife : shewing how he doth complain of hard fortune he had to marry such a cross-grain'd quean as she was, and he wishes all young men to be advised to look before they leap. To the tune of Bonny, bonny bird." The tune from Flora, 8vo., 1729, air 13; the ballad abbreviated. |
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