The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #160090   Message #3796299
Posted By: Jim Brown
17-Jun-16 - 03:35 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Drowsy Sleeper
Subject: RE: Origins: Drowsy Sleeper
> "In the second volume of his dainty little 32mo. Tea-Table Miscellany, issued in 1725, Allan Ramsay printed the Song which Tom D'Urfey had first published in 1683"

I've found the Roxburghe Ballads volume at https://archive.org/details/p1roxburgheballa06chapuoft . The quotation is on p. 197, but it refers to "She rose and let me in" (AKA "The kind lady"), which is in TTM vol. 2, not "Awake, thou fairest thing in nature" in vol. 3. "She rose and let me in" is a night visit song, but as far as I can see it doesn't have any specific links to the "Drowsy Sleeper" cluster (no parental opposition, not letter, etc.). As you mentioned in an earlier post, Richie, TTM vol. 2 also includes Ramsay's version of "Widow are ye wawkin" ("The auld man's best argument") - a variant on the night visit, in which in an old man woos a young widow who in the end is more impressed by the clinking of his money than anything else - again, no particular connection to the "Drowsy sleeper" songs, apart from sharing the night visit motif.