Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 2

524 ENGLISH SONG AJJD BALLAD MUSIC.
To a new Play-house tune, or In January last* or The Groivlin. ,,h Printed by P.
Brooksby, at the Golden Ball in West Sinithfield (Rox. ii. 556). Commencing —
" Young Jemmy was a lad A face and shape so wondrous fine,
Of royal birth, and breeding, So charming every part,
"With every beauty clad, That every lass upon the green
And every swain exceeding : For Jemmy had a heart," &c.
Both these ballads have been reprinted in Evans's Collection, iii. 206 and 211
(1810). The tune is in The Grenteel Companion for the Recorder, 1683; in
180 Loyal Songs, 1685 and 1694; in The Village Opera, 1729; in Love and
Revenge, or The Vintner Outwitted, n.d. ; in The Bay's Opera, 1730 ; &c.
There are two others, to the tune, in 180 Loyal Songs ; the first, "Old Jemmy,
tune of Young Jemmy." It is a counter-panegyric upon James II., when Duke of
York, by Mat. Taubman ; commencing —
" Old Jemmy is a lad
Right lawfully descended."
The second, "A new song on the arrival of Prince George [of Denmark], and
his intermarriage with the Lady Anne," afterwards Queen Anne ; commencing —
" Prince George at last is come ;
Fill every man his bumper," &c.
In the Roxburghe Collection, ii. 504, is " The West-country Nymph ; or, The
loyal Maid of Bristol," &c, to the tune of Young Jemmy; beginning —
" Come, all you maidens fair, In Bristol city fair
And listen to my ditty ; There liv'd a damsel pretty."
In the early part of the last century, the Pretender was called " Young
Jemmy," and the tune became a favorite with the Jacobites. " I never can pass
through Cranbourn Alley, but I am astonished at the remissness or lenity of the
magistrates in suffering the Pretender's interest to be carried on and promoted in
so public and shameful a manner as it there is. Here a fellow stands eternally
bawling out his Pye-Corner pastorals in behalf of Bear Jemmy, Lovely Jemmy,
&c. I have been credibly informed, this man has actually in his pocket a com-
mission, under the Pretender's great seal, constituting him his Ballad-singer in
Ordinary in Great Britain ; and that his ditties are so well worded, that they
often poison the minds of many well-meaning people : that this person is not
more industrious with his tongue in behalf of his master, than others are, at the
same time, busy with their fingers among the audience ; and the monies collected
in this manner are most of those mighty remittances the Post-boy so frequently
boasts of being made to the Chevalier." — From " A View of London and West-
minster : or, The Town Spy. Containing an account of the different customs,
tempers, manners, policies, &c, of the People in the several most noted Parishes
within the Bills of Mortality, respectively," &c. By a German Gentleman.
2nd. edit., 8vo., 1725.
* For In January last, see Index. " The Gowlin is a yellow flower
» The Gowlin is called " a new Playhouse tune " in the That S rows u P on ,he P Iains '
ballad, the last stanza of which explains that- Which °f tentim ^ is «««««<*
By nymphs and shepherd swains," &c.