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REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE TO GEORGE II. |
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' The King shall enjoy his own again.'" (Macaulay's History of England, iii. 175,1855.
There are several witnesses to the fact of the words having been sung " God save great James, our King," but as neither Victor, Arne, Burney, nor Eenjamin Cooke (the three last being the persons who heard it sung " God save great James") were born even in the lifetime of James II., this James could have been no other than the Pretender, his son, whom the Jacobites entitled " James III." James II. died in 1701, " James III." on the 30th of December, 1765. It is impossible to suppose that any persons would sing " long life" to a dead king. These Jacobite parodies.were very common; I have already quoted three on Rule, Britannia, and subjoined is one on " God save the King;" but no parody on the latter would be so easy or so natural as the mere substitution of James for George.
The last claim to be analyzed is that of Henry Carey.
It is needless to quote any of the second-hand testimony in his favour, since we have the direct evidence of a witness who was living at the time the enquiry was instituted.
John Christopher Smith had been intimately acquainted with Carey, when a young man. He composed the music to Carey's Terarninta, which had great success, and passed through four editions. It was first published in 1732. Smith asserts that Carey wrote the words and composed the music of " God save the King," and took the manuscript to him to correct the base. At the first glance it seems improbable that Carey should have required such assistance, but in the preface to his Musical Century, vol. ii., dated Jan. 23, 1740, Carey says, " I had some thoughts of giving the reader a detail of this work . . . what basses I have added; what amended," &c. This was his last musical publication, and the admission removes the only reasonable doubt upon Smith's testimony. In the postcript to the letter which Smith dictated, Dr. Harington says, " Mr. Smith understood your father intended this air as part of a birthday ode." Carey seems to have had something of the kind in his mind, when he printed " A new year's Ode for 1736-7, compos'd in a dream, the author imagining himself to be Poet Laureate,"—an appointment he would, no doubt, have been delighted to hold.
Carey gives evidence, throughout his works, of having been a thoroughly loyal man, and a strong adherent to the Protestant succession. His dreaming ode ends thus :— " King George he was born in the month of October,
'Tis a sin for a subject that month to be sober."
His first poem, in his first book of poems, 1713, is " An Ode presented to her Majesty on her Birthday," beginning—
" Darling of Heav'n, and glory of the earth, Illustrious Anna, whose auspicious birth." Iu the third edition of his poems, 1729, when George H. was on the throne, we have an " Ode on their Majesties' succession," ending— " God send No end To line Divine Of George and Caroline; " |
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