'SONG. 1. BY GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. TUNE: Last Valentine's Day. 1 A VOYAGE over seas had not enter'd my head, Had I known but on which side to butter my bread, Heigho! sure I-for hunger must die! I've sail'd like a booby; come here in a squall, Where, alas! there's no bread to be butter'd at all! Oho! I'm a terrible booby! 2 In London what gay chop-house signs in the street! But the only sign here is of nothing to eat. Heigho! that I-for hunger should die! [My mutton's all lost, I'm a poor starving elf, And for all the world like a lost mutton myself; Oho! I shall die like a lost mutton! Oh what a lost mutton am I! 3 For a neat slice of beef, I could roar like a bull; And my stomach's so empty my heart is quite full. Heigho! that I-for hunger should die!] But, grave without meat, I must here meet my grave, For my bacon, I fancy, I never shall save: I can't save my bacon, not I! The term lost mutton in verse two, appears to be a light parody on the scripture phrase of a lost sheep, and is therefore objectionable and should be omitted. The Ballad of Sir John Barleycorn, given before, p. 72. is an allegory with some little share of pun in it, as well as humour. There are puns also in the two Songs of The Blacksmith in the 3d volume of my Collection, p. 88. and 90. the latter of which is from the Opera of Catch him who can. The Serious Pun, which is similar to the Paronomasia of the Greeks and Romans, is sometimes used by Collins in his Songs. The Mulberry tree has some, but the fruit is not of the best flavour. The following, in his Song of To-morrow, or The Prospect of Hope, (the whole of which is given in my Collection, vol. 1. p. 194.) is not bad: And when I at last must throw off this frail covering, On the brink of the grave I'll not seek to keep hovering, But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey, And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow; Collins's Song, which he calls COLLINS's SALLY, A Vocal Parody, being a parody upon Sally in our Alley, (see p. 331.) or, more properly, an answer to it, must rather be termed pleasant and ingenious than witty. It is not a song of the first rate, but answers the purpose of preserving that very beautiful tune, though that is also done by two other songs in my first volume, p. 293. and 295. II. COLLINS's SALLY. 1 THE Bard, who glows with Grub-street fire, In Sally's praise profuse is ; But know the Sally I admire, 'Tis polish'd wit produces. Sweet sprightly nymph, 't is thee I mean, I stand not shilly shally; Thou art my fancy's lawful queen, Thou art my lovely Sally. k k 2 'Tis true we're told in prose and rhyme A Wit is but a feather, But let me lightly mount sublime, A rush for wind or weather, For, like the lark, I'll soar and sing, The grov❜ling earth-worm ne'er takes wing, 3. Sallies of wit, where wisdom rules, I'll silence keep to keep my friend, 4 And as Old Time speeds on apace, When from the Sally-port of life Parody, according to Johnson, is "A kind of writing, in which the words of an author or his thoughts are taken, and by a slight change adapted to some new purpose." The Parody is, therefore, a species of wit which pleases from the surprize occasioned by the contrast between the old and the new application. A very excellent specimen of this occurs in The Fashionable World displayed, by THE REV. JOHN OWEN, in a Parody on Gray's Ode to Spring, in the character of A Man of Fashion. III. ODE ON THE SPRING. BY A MAN OF FASHION. 1 Lo! where the party-giving dames, The dear-bought harmony of Spring; |