Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Minstrelsy of Ireland

LET THE FARMER PRAISE HIS GROUNDS.
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1. lawn, lawn, lawn, Oh ! my charm -ing lit - tie cruis - keen lawn.
2. lawn, lawn, lawn, Oh ! my charm -ing lit - tie cruis - keen lawn.
3. lawn, lawn, lawn,
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take an -oth - er cruis - keen lawn."!
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'sGra - ma-chree ma cruis - keen, Shlan-the gal ma - vour - neen, 's Gra -ma-chree a cool - een
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bawn, bawn, bawn, ! 's Gra - ma-chree a cool - een bawn.
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an unbiassed description. His remark that "Moore appropriated the air under the name ot 'The Cruiskeen Lawn'" is certainly
amusing. Poor Tom Moore ! He has been accused of " ruthlessly altering " melodies, and now of appropriating them ! - Let us
look into facts ; Moore's " Song of the Battle Eye : air, Cruiskeen Lawn," was published in the tenth number of the Melodies,
1834. Just twenty-eight years prior to that date, Smollett Holden printed the identical air in his Old Established Irish Times as
"The Cruiskeen Lawn." But it probably did not suit Mr. Chappell to know of this fact. Again I say, poor Tom Moore I In
the Dancing Master, vol. ii., 1728, we find John Young printing a version of the tune as " Put in all '' (see Appendix No. XLTI.)
which bears considerable resemblance to the Irish setting. The earliest printed version of " The Cruiskeen Lawn " which I have
been able to trace as being directly connected with Ireland, is " There was a pretty girl," air iii., in the third act of Charles
Coffey's opera Tlie Beggar's Wedding : a New Opera as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Dublin with great applause, 1729 (see Appendix
No. XTV.) The first edition of this work contains no music, but mentions the names of the airs. In the fourth edition, 1731,
,the airs are attached, otherwise it is the same as the edition of 1729. A revised version of Coffey's opera was performed at
-Drury Lane in 1729, with new tunes to suit the London audience ; it was entitled Phebe., or the Beggar's Wedding. There is every
reason to believe that the air has been known in Ireland and Scotland for many centuries. The theory that it is a Danish
folk -air seems to have no foundation ; it is evidently purely Celtic. The song, "Let the farmer praise his grounds" has been
attributed to O'Keefe, but upon what authority I do not know.