UNPUBLISHED SONG BY THOMAS OTWAY.
In turning over a quantity of miscellaneous papers in MS. (some originals and some copies) of the latter half of the seventeenth century (which chance lately threw in my way), I stumbled upon the following song by the unfortunate author of Venice Preserved. It may, possibly, have been printed in one, or more, of the numerous volumes of "miscellany poems" which teemed from the press at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the following century; but in looking over a tolerable assemblage which time has accumulated on my shelves, I have not been able to discover it. The MS. does not appear to be an original, although the handwriting is of the author's period. The punctuation is as I found it:—
"Health breeds care; love, hope and fear;
What does love or bus'ness here?
While Bacchus merry does appear,
Fight on and fear no sinking:
Charge it briskly to the brim,
Till the flying topsails swim:
We owe the great discovery to him
Of this new world of drinking.
"Grave cabals that states refine,
Mingle their debates with wine;
Ceres and the god o' th' vine
Makes ev'ry great commander.
Let sober sots small-beer subdue,
The wise and valiant wine does woe;
The Stagyrite had the honour to
Be drunk with Alexander.
"Stand to your arms, and now advance,
A health to the English King of France;
On to the next, a bon speranze,
By Bacchus and Apollo.
Thus in state I lead the van,
Fall in your place by your right-hand man;
Beat drum! now march! dub a dub, ran dan;
He's a Whigg that will not follow.
"T. Otway."
That poor Otway was a lover of the "juice of the grape," is too well known; and it seems from his biography in Cibber's Lives of the Poets, that he was for some time a soldier, and served in Flanders. The half-bacchanalian, half-military character of this song, seems to identify it with the poet. The popular story, that Otway died for want at an ale-house on Tower Hill, is, it is to be hoped, not strictly true. Dennis, the critic (as he is called), tells us that—
"Otway had an intimate friend (one Blackstone), who was shot; the murderer fled towards Dover, and Otway pursued him. In his return he drank water when violently heated, and so got a fever, which was the death of him."
This story is creditable to the warmth of Otway's friendship, and I should be glad to meet with any additional authority to give it confirmation.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.