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TOM A BEDLAM, COME YOU NOT FROM NEWCASTLE? ETC. 779
Tom in all its glory, and as he required chains to act in, the president of the club ordered in the jack-chain."—Goldsmith's Essays.
p. 332. Tom a Bedlam.—This tune had several other names, two of which were Fly, Brass, and The jovial Tinker. In the Pepys Collection, i. 460, is " A pleasant new songe of a joviall Tinker, to a pleasant new tune called Fly Brasse." It is in ten-line stanzas, and commences, "There was a joviall tinker." In the same volume, and immediately preceding it, is " The famous Rat Ketcher, with his travels into Prance, and his return to London: To the tune of The Joviall Tinker." It commences " The was a rare rat-catcher." Both were " imprinted by John Trundle," and the latter, when he lived " at the signe of the Nobody in Barbican."
The following were also sung to the tune: " The Oakerman," beginning," The star that shines by daylight" ( Westminster Drollery, Part ii., 1671); "lam a rogue, and a stout one " (written out to the tune in Gamble's MS.); " Tobacco's a musician, and in a pipe delighteth" (Nicholls's Progresses, or Eimbault's Little Book of Songs and Ballads, p. 175); "All in the Land of Essex" (Sir John Denham's Poems, 1671); " There was a jovial Tinker, dwelt in the town of Turvey " {Merry Drollery Complete, Part i., p. 27, 1670); and "The zealous Puritan" {Loyal Songs, i. 4, 1731).
The " Dr. G," master of St. Paul's School, who is celebrated for his flogging propensities (p. 333), must have been Dr. Gale, who was chosen high master in 1676, and held the appointment for twenty-five years. He died April 8, 1702, and is mentioned both by Pepys and Evelyn.
Some copies of the tune make the thirteenth and fourteenth bars almost the same as the ninth and tenth, and it is better suited to some of the songB in that form.
p. 339. Come you not from Newcastle ?—The reference to this tune in Friar Bacon, carries back the date to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Robert Greene, who dramatised the pamphlet, died in 1592.
p. 344. Buff Coat.—The burden of a ballad entitled " The kind-hearted creature," seems particularly suitable to this air:— "Sing, boys! drink, boys!
Why should not we be merry J I'll tell you of a bonny lass,
And her love beyond the ferry."
In Thompson's Country Dances, i. 59, the tune is found under the name of Miss Peachey, and in ii. 77, under that of The Retreat.
p. 354. Northern Nancy.—D'Urfey alludes to the dance in his Bong, " Jolly Roger Twangdillo of Plowden Hall" {Pills, i. 20,1719) :—
" She danc'd Northern Nancy, Ask'dparlez vous Fransay," &c.
The ballad of Mock-Beggars' Hall is quoted as " to the tune of Is it not your Northern Nanny ? or Sweet is the lass that loves me." The last name is derived from a ballad by Martin Parker, entitled " Love's Solace, to a new court tune" (Rox., i. 102); or, as in some later copies, " Sweet is the lass that loves me: A young |
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