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[Bagford Collection, II. 166.]

Sweet Williams Answer to Amorous

Bettys delight.

Wherein he shews his heart and mind is true,
And he will never change her for a new,
While life doth last, most faithful will I be,
'Cause amorous Betty is the Girl for me.

TO THE SAME TUNE [AS Amorous Betty's Delight], Or; The
Watermans Delight. By John Wade.

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H what rare musick's this,

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that doth sound in mine ear,

Or what greater bliss can be [than] to kiss

my joy and only Dear;

How happy now am I,

the days my own, I see,

Cause amorous Betty, none so pritty,

will my true Love be.

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Though sweet-hearts i've had store,
yet i'le love none but she,
Cause amorous Betty, none so pritty,
is the Girl for me.

There's pritty simpering Sue,
and Frances at the Bell,
For to give them both their due,
loves me exceeding well:
And Joan that lives i' th' Strand,

fain would my true love be. But amorous Betty, &c.

And likewise smiling Kate

doth love my company,

And Doll my person doth not hate,
but fain would it injoy :
Mary would me imbrace,
yet i'le have none of she,

Cause amorous Betty, &c.

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Wherefore, my own true Love,

provide to be my Wife,

My mind from thee shall ne'r Remove
so long as I have Life:

Wild horses shall me tear

e're Ile prove false to thee:

Cause amorous Betty, none so pritty,
will my true Love be.

In Summer time we'l walk

to hear the sweet Birds sing; Hand in hand we two will talk, to welcome in the Spring: The sweetest flowers that grows, my Dear, i'le pluck for thee: Cause amorous Betty, &c.

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No beauty, though ne'r so bright,

shall cause me from thee to part,

For thou shalt know where e're thou go

Thou hast both hand and heart:

57

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See previous pages 227 R, 289, 499, and 568, also 606, for woodcuts of

"Beauty-Spots" patches.

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Printed for R. Burton, at the Horse-shooe in West-smithfield.

[In Black-letter. Date, probably, not later than 1666.]

A Pill against Popery.

"Those shameful tumults, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate, and unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble and familiar an example as the 'No Popery' riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty."-Charles Dickens.

BRAVELY,

RAVELY, in November 1841, did Charles Dickens thus write in the Preface to his Barnaby Rudge, and by publicly refusing to blind himself, or become dumb against the prevalence of one recurring form of "religious" intolerance, aroused a bitter class of foes, who never forgave the exposure or ceased to vilify its author. Whosoever dare separate himself from those who clamour against Popery, may generally look for accusations being raised, at one and the same time, of being a "Pervert" and "devoid of religion." As though the refusal to join in sectarian intolerance must neces→ sarily have been caused by deficiency of Christian faith!

Yet the worst excesses of the riots in 1780 were provoked by foolish and malignant wire-pullers, in no whit more culpable than had been their predecessors of a century earlier. Lord George Gordon was, at least, a sincere believer that the agitation against Catholicism was a great and holy work. Later, when confined in the Tower of London, he began to meditate upon the result of his inflammatory addresses to an ignorant and brutal rabble. He then lost faith, not only in that dead negation of Protestantism which had misled him, but even in the creed of Christianity itself. He ended in renouncing his belief in the Saviour, and becoming a Jew. But he had been single-hearted, although narrow-minded and prejudiced, and, while labouring to overthrow Papists and Popery, had no selfish ambition or personal rancour to gratify. In all this he was far superior to those revolutionary intriguers and declaimers who, from 1676 to 1690, used the disguise of zealous Protestantism, to enable them to work out their schemes for enriching themselves, and gaining power to trample on their enemies. See this Bagford Coll., iii. 41, 44, 50, 51, for descriptions of those who contrived the Popish Plot.

Of the following ballad we have met no copy elsewhere. The tune mentioned, "Aim not too high" (Roxb. Coll., i. 106), agrees with "Fortune, my Foe, why dost thou frown on me?" of which we gave the earlier verses on p. 318. Much more of grim earnest is here, than in the playfulness of The Protestant's Prophesie (p. 439. We have since found its tune: see Appendix).

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