"Cupid's Trepan or Up the Green Forest" was priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue at £1, 11s. 6d.
[107.] The Lady and Apprentice. Taken down twice, the tune here given is that sung with these words by Samuel Fone. We got the melody also from Sally Satterley, but with her the words were in confusion. The ballad runs on the same lines, and is almost identical with "The Lady who fell in love with a 'Prentice Boy," printed as a Broadside by Pitts, 1790-1810; also by Harkness of Preston. A copy in the British Museum (1876, d). This ballad begins like that of "Cupid's Garden," which is well known. But the ballad is a mere cooking up by a balladmonger of the earlier theme, and very badly done.
The melody is actually the same as that of "Love's Tale" in our "Garland of Country Song."
[108.] Paul Jones. Taken down from a good many singers on and around Dartmoor. The melody is in the Mixolydian mode, and is very early and rugged, far older than the period of Paul Jones himself. Mr. C. Sharp says: "In my opinion the tune should perhaps never be harmonised at all. The whole air is cast in the chord of the dominant 7th, and, in the opinion of most authorities, this chord should end the song; but in view of the popular preference for a concord rather than a discord as the concluding harmony, I have ended with the usual cadence."
Paul Jones was the terror of our coasts; he was born near Kirkcudbright in 1747. His real name was John Paul. When the rupture took place between Great Britain and America, he enlisted under the Revolutionary flag, and assumed the name of Paul Jones. His daring disposition, and his knowledge of the British coast, pointed him out as a fitting leader in marauding schemes. Towards the end of 1777 he was actively employed, as commander, in fitting out the Ranger privateer, mounting eighteen guns, and manned with a crew of 150 men. We have not the space for narrating his daring exploits; his life has often been written, and a good notice of him will be found in the "Dictionary of National Biography." The fight described in the ballad took place on September 23, 1779. The body of Paul Jones was removed from Paris, where he died, to America in 1905.
The ballad is found on Broadsides. It is given by Logan in his "Pedlar's Pack," p. 32. Dr. Barrett, in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 33, has the ballad to the tune we have given here to "[The Bonny Blue Kerchief]," to which Paul Jones is quite unsuited.
[109.] The Merry Haymakers. This quaint carol-like song was taken down from John Woodrich, who learned it, about 1850, and he says that it was his father's favourite song, also from James Parsons. Neither knew the words in their entirety, but they may be found in "West Country Garlands," B.M. (11,621, b 11), and among the Broadsheets of Pitts, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, beginning "In the merry month of June." The words also in Bell's "Ballads of the English Peasantry," p. 171. Dr. Brushfield of Budleigh Salterton has kindly sent me a MS. copy of the end of the seventeenth century or early in the eighteenth. The words, however, did not fit the tune comfortably, and I was constrained to re-write the song.
"The Merry Haymakers" is in D'Urfey's "Pills," and as a Broadside printed by C.B. (Bates), 1695, was priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue, 1850, at three guineas.
[110.] In Bibberly Town. The air taken down from John Bennett, Chagford. In Broadsides the place is "Beverley Town," and is entitled "The Beverley Maid and the Tinker," printed by Catnach, B.M. (1876, c 2); as "The Tinker's Frolic," in a Garland in the British Museum, printed by Swindells, Manchester (11,621, b 14); as "The Tinker and Chambermaid," a Broadside by Harkness, Preston (1876, d). It begins—
"In Beverley Town a maid did dwell,
A buxom lass, I knew her well.
Her age it was just twenty-two,
And for a man she had in view."