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

REIGN OF CHARLES II.
551
Chester Waits, from Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master, iii. 36.
Moderate time.
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Other tunes of the Waits might be added, as Worksop Waites, from Musical
MSS., No. 610, Brit. Mus. ; York Waits, from the broadsides ; Bristol Waits,
from Apollo's Banquet, &c. ; but the preceding four specimens will probably be
thought sufficient.
AN OLD WOMAN POOR AND BLIND.
This is one of the ballads that were printed by W. Thackeray, in the reign of
Charles II., and subsequently by Playford and his successors, in all the editions
of Pills to purge Melancholy, with the tune.
There are several other ballads to the air in the Pills, and among them, one on
The Cries of London, beginning, " Come, buy my greens and flowers fine ; " and
a second, The crafty Cracks of East Smithfield. The latter has the burden of
Fm plunder 'd of all my gold.
The tune was introduced into several of the ballad-operas, such as The Village
Opera, 1729, and The Fashionable Lady, or Harlequin's Opera, 1730 ; sometimes
in minor, sometimes in a major key.
In the Bagford Collection of Ballads, are the following : —
" The toothless Bride," &c, " to the tune of An old ivoman poor and blind.''''
" The Deptford Plumb Cake ; or, The Four Merry Wives. Tune, An old
ivoman poor and blind."
In A Pill to purge State Melancholy, v. ii., 1718, "Here's a health to great
Eugene ; " a song on Prince Eugene's routing the Turks, to the same air.
The following is " A Dialogue between Jack and his Mother. Tune of Old
woman poor and blind ; " copies of which are in the Roxburghe and other
collections.