The 1745 book doubtless owed its rearrangement and some of its lyrics to Mallet; it provides twenty sets of words which require music, but if these were set by Arne, eight can no longer be traced. In 1754 a new version of the libretto was published with the title: “Alfred the Great, an Oratorio, As it was Represented at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. The Musick was composed by Mr. Arne. London: Printed for A. Miller, in the Strand. MDCCLIV.” The advertisement, or preface, to the book reads: “This Oratorio is altered from Alfred, a Masque, represented before their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, at Clifeden, August 1, 1740; being the Birth-Day of the Princess Augusta, written by the late Mr. Thomson and Mr. Mallet, and afterwards new written by Mr. Mallet, and acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane,[40] in 1751.” Thomson died in 1748; Mallet had therefore a free hand, a liberty of which he availed himself very fully; lines were altered, new ones introduced, and several verses added for songs and for chorus. The music for all the songs and solo music is contained in the volume published by Arne, but the music for the choruses is not given; probably it no longer exists. Amongst the additions made by Mallet is a Pastoral Invocation, or song, commencing:
Nymphs and shepherds, come away,
and he makes the second Act end with a Grand Chorus:
How sleep the Brave, who sink to Rest,
By all their Country’s Wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy Fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d Mould,
She then shall dress a sweeter Sod
Than Fancy’s Feet have ever trod.
There Honour comes, a Pilgrim grey,
To bless the Turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping Hermit there.
By Hands unseen the Knell is rung;
By Fairy Forms their Dirge is sung.
These exquisite lines were written by William Collins in 1746; but when Mallet annexed and printed them, without acknowledgment, the unfortunate author was in a lunatic asylum, and therefore quite incapable of protecting himself. When Mallet produced his version of “Alfred” for Garrick in 1751, he endeavoured to make folk believe that he wrote the words of the Ode, “Rule, Britannia.” They had been printed in Edinburgh in a popular song-book, “The Charmer,” with Thomson’s initials, J. T., and by the friends of the poet were generally known to be his. Mallet’s literary honesty or dishonesty is now generally appreciated, but it must not be forgotten that for years he posed as the author of the ballad “William and Margaret,” and unflinchingly accepted all the encomiums passed upon him in connection with it. In 1880 William Chappell called attention to a folio black-letter sheet in the British Museum, which, with the exception of the first two lines, was identical with Mallet’s print. The date of the publication of the Museum copy was 1711, Mallet’s 1724, and the ballad is believed to have been popular when quoted by Fletcher in the “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” in 1611.
The celebrity of “Rule, Britannia” appears to have been immediate and general. Hanoverians and Jacobites adopted it as a popular ditty; the latter party produced several parodies, amongst them the chorus:
Rule, Britannia, Britannia rise and fight,
Restore your injured Monarch’s right.
The following words in a collection of songs called “The True Royalist” are directed to be sung to the tune, “When Britain first, at heav’n’s command”: