The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71781   Message #1875779
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
03-Nov-06 - 09:47 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Little Brown Jug
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
"Collected" is an anachronistic term in the circumstances, so best avoided; but it's certainly true that much of the above text was adapted from the earlier 'O Good Ale'.

Chappell, for example (PMOT, II, 1859, 660-661) printed a shortened text with music, including a form of verse 2 above. He didn't provide details, but likely his source was the song sheet issued around 1785 by Longman & Broderip of London, arranged for voice and keyboard (copies are in the British and Bodleian Libraries). Baring Gould (English Minstrelsie, VII, 1896, 60-61 and xix-xx) also prints a set from that source. A minor art-song, then, that, like so many, survived in the popular tradition long after it was forgotten by the more fashionable market it was originally aimed at.