THIS

The Happy Lover.

HIS appears with its own music (also given in the Bagford sheet) in Pills to purge Melancholy, ii. 177, of the 1700 edition : and ii. 199 of 1719. The words alone are in Academy of Compliments, 1705 and 1715, on pp. 156, 122, respectively. The song was written by Tom D'Urfey.

We may as well confess that we retain a strong liking for Tom D'Urfey; as did most of his contemporaries. It is quite true that he was not a rigid moralist, so far as his Songs, Plays, and Tales are to be taken in evidence. Nor are the writings by others in the Collection of Pills which he superintended for Playford, in a somewhat slovenly manner, exactly "proper" to be upheld as offering models for youth. But, on the whole, Tom comes nearer to our affections than sour-visaged Edmund Waller, the Courtier and delicate Poet, from whose own composition (Odes to Saccharissa notwithstanding) affection and sound principle got left out more entirely. When Jeremy Collier attacked D'Urfey by name in his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage" (3rd edit. was in 1698), Tom acted on the well-known legal advice: "No case: abuse the plaintiff's attorney," and raked his assailant fore and aft in a familiar Preface to "The Campaigners," 1698, etc., ending with an unsavoury fable of the Dog and the Otter, over which we may still laugh. What then? There is other food for grown men than Revalenta Arabica, excellent though it may be for infants before their teething; and even Tom D'Urfey will not disagree with us if our digestion be sound, and doctors leave us unvisited. D'Urfey's offences against decency were no barrier to his social reputation in his earlier days. Later, when he needed and obtained the friendly assistance of Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, and through them gained a Public Benefit at the Theatre, enough to secure for him a decent competence in his old age,—we do not find that many persons were inclined to fling stones at him. In truth, under all the mask of smug demureness which the Essayists and Pamphleteers early in the eighteenth century affected to wear, there was as keen a relish for comical naughtiness as in the days of "Old Rowley." Even as the gloomy bigotry of the Romanist James II. and of the "Protestant Deliverer" (save the mark!) William III. did not keep either of them from notorious sins of conjugal infidelity, any more than the gay and reckless Charles himself, who was not enthusiastically religious at any time; so was it with the men of the succeeding reign. Not quite so much coarseness, or absolute indecency, meets the eye or the

ear during the so-called Augustan age of easy-going Queen Anne, as had been common during the revolt against the tyranny of the "Rump" Parliament. But, as compared with that time, amid the more guarded speech and polished periods of the later days (especially under the Hanoverian rule of the first and second Georges, both grossly licentious), there was probably quite as much foulness of thought secretly encouraged, and there certainly existed less manliness and high-toned poetry.

Tom D'Urfey (claiming relationship with the popular French romancist, Honoré D'Urfé, author of Astrée), was born of Huguenot parents, at Exeter, during the Civil War, and died in 1723. Addison's Essay, in the Guardian, No. 67, May 28, 1713, gives a pleasant account of the old song-writer, fly-fisher, dramatist, and singer:-"Our countryman is still living, and in a blooming old age that still promises many musical productions; for, if I am not mistaken, our British swan will sing to the last. My old friend ought not to pass the remainder of his life in a cage like a singing bird, but enjoy all that Pindaric liberty which is suitable to a man of his genius. He has made the world merry, and I hope they will make him easy so long. as he stays among us. This I will take upon me to say, they cannot do a kindness to a more diverting companion, or a more cheerful, honest, and good-natured man.'

Thirty-one of D'Urfey's plays are in print, but he not improbably wrote others. If Apollo did not bestow on him the Laurel, some of his convivial friends on earth offered the gift freely, styling him "Thomas D'Urfey, Poeta Lyricus :—

Whilst D'Urfey's voice his verse do's raise,
When D'Urfey sings his Tunefull Layes,
Give D'Urfey's Lyrick Muse the Bayes."

Thus wrote E. G., probably E. Gouge, painter of D'Urfey's portrait (engraved by G. Vertue). Another wrote his Epitaph (quoted in Pop. Music, 623), printed in 1726:

Here lyes the Lyrick, who, with tale and song,
Did life to three-score years and ten prolong;
His Tale was pleasant and his Song was sweet,
His heart was cheerful-but his thirst was great.
Grieve, Reader, grieve, that he too soon grew old,—
His song has ended, and his tale is told.

He had undoubtedly been in favour with Charles II. The King felt a quiet good-humoured contempt for most people in the world, and could value the services of those who, like Tom D'Urfey, possessed sufficient savoir vivre to be pleasant companions. Your political Reformers, your religious Enthusiasts,

and even your universal Philanthropists and national Benefactors, are unquiet neighbours and disagreeable guests. They cannot allow another man to ride his innocent hobby, but would compel him to be whipping and spurring the very demonstrative beast that carries themselves. His Majesty would soon feel bored, or indignant, with such people. Moreover, the music loved by him was unquestionably such dance-tunes or "jigs" as accompanied the words of D'Urfey's songs; and perhaps the words themselves were to His Majesty's taste also. We see no evidence to the contrary. If Tom's principles, moral or political, were not exalted; if he failed to aspire to become a religious teacher, but held on his way with playful satire, and told his fie-fie stories, wrote his two-score of rollicking comedies, provocative of laughter, and chaunted fully four or five hundred original songs of his own; he, at least, made no pretence to seem other than he knew himself to be. Tom Brown, who was coarser in language, and not equally light of hand or humour, quarrelled with him occasionally, and wrote splenetic attacks against him: one being as follows:

To Mr. D

, upon his incomparable Ballads,
styled by him Lyrick Odes.

Thou Cur, half French, half English breed,
Thou Mungril of Parnassus,

To think tall lines run up to seed,
Shou'd ever tamely pass us.

Thou write Pindaricks, and be d―!
Write Epigrams for Cutlers;
None with thy Lyricks can be sham'd,
But Chamber-maids and Butlers.

In t'other world expect dry Blows,
No tears can wash thy stains out;
Horace will pluck thee by the nose,
And Pindar beat thy brains out.

(Whs. of Tho. Brown, iii. 104, 2nd edit. 1709.)

Another of Tom Brown's Lampoons amused the witlings of the Town, by detailing the bloodless duel which took place at Epsom, in 1689, between D'Urfey and a rival musician :

I sing of a Duel, in Epsom befell,

"Twixt fa-sol-la D'Urfey and sol-la-mi Bell, &c.
(Ibid., v. 65, edit. 1720.)

Other satirists elaborated a Mock-Trial of both D'Urfey and
Brown, in a Sessions of the Poets, holden at the foot of Parnassus-
Hill, before Apollo, July the 9th, 1696. But we scarcely think
that honest Tom, the dramatist and songster, cared one farthing

for all their squibs and pasquinades. He was too sound and robust of build to be thin-skinned. He could give back as good as he got, if inclined to wield the flail against thicker sculls. At any rate, he knew that he could afford to laugh at their assaults, for he had been far more successful than his rivals, none of whom hated him. Among the songs which he wrote (poor though many of them may be, and infected too strongly with sensuality), are more than a few of the originals which, when a little chastened and purified, became favourites of the whole Scottish nation. Wiser than ourselves in this, Scotland cherishes her early ballads and ditties, not only in Library-books, but by keeping them sung in country and in town, preferring them to the ephemeral rubbish of the musichalls. Thousands sing verses written first by D'Urfey; whose name as their author they have forgotten or never known. We are not sorry to hail him here, among the acknowledged writers of the Bagford Collection of Ballads. Worse men were amidst them than Tom D'Urfey.

The third and fourth verses, with the whole of “Her Answer," are additional in the Bagford copy; and not contained in the Pills to P. Melancholy. A copy is in Pepys Coll., v. 247.

Celia won by Aminta's Loyalty.

A New SONG in great Request at Court. TO AN EXCELLENT NEW TUNE; OR, Why are my Eyes, etc.

Licensed according to Order.

[I.]

Hy are my eyes still flowing?

WHY

Why do's my Heart thus trembling move?

Why do I sigh when going

To see the Darling Saint I Love?

Ah! she's my Heaven, and in her Eyes, the Deity;

there is no Life Like what she can give, Nor any Death like taking my leave.

II.

Tell me no more of Glory,

to Courts' Ambition I've resign'd,

But tell a long, long Story,

Of Celia's Shape, her Face and Mind;

Speak too of Raptures, that will Life destroy;

to Enjoy,

Had I a Diadem, Scepter and Ball,

For that dear Minute I'd part with them all.

with killing Pleasures from thy Charms:

8

12

16

My painful Love destroying,

20

Come, come, dear Celia, now let Storms be gone,

and overblown;

There's no delight like thy transporting Love,
No Joy below, what e'er there's above.

24

when cruel Fates pronounce me dead?

28

Speak, speak, dear Saint, and by those conqu'ring Eyes,

that-surprize:

Give, give me favour in thy sight again,

Or kill me quite to ease my pain.

Her ANSWER.

V.

OW can I seek to cover

How faming Heart o'erwhelm'd with grief?

See, see a constant Lover,

thus fainting, plead for some Relief!

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