Don't know if it was his favorite tune but Thomas Hardy does devote a couple of affectionate paragraphs to it in "Far From the Madding Crowd" (Chapter 36). The passage starts out: "As to the merits of 'The Soldier's Joy' there cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the musical circles of Weatherbury that this melody, at the end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still possesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the majority of other dances at their first opening..." In Hardy's major novels you'll find references to "The Foggy, Foggy Dew," "Devil's Dream," "Haste to the Wedding," and dozens of other tunes. There's a CD from England called "Songs of Thomas Hardy's Wessex" that contains a bunch, although not "Soldier's Joy." It's Saydisc SDL-410.