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A MONSTROUS SHAPE |
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though many of them were at the time disclosed as frauds. John Pitts, of 14, Great St Andrew Street, Seven Dials, London, printed about 1800 a ballad of "The Pig Faced Lady. Sung at Astley's Theatre, &c." (Douce Collection, m, 132.) The first stanza runs:
Your zarvant all round and you zee I be here, And what I left plough for will soon make appear, For I's come to Lunnun an oudandish place, To marry the lady that's got the Pig's face! Tura, lura, lal lura, tura lura, lal la.
There is also a marvellous portrait of an Irish lady on a sheet in the British Museum called "The Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester-Square. . .Published by John Fairburn, 2, Broadway, Ludgate-Hill. {Price One Shilling, coloured.)," 1815 (2188(2)). A less satisfactory portrait is in 2188(3). James Caulfield's Book of Wonderful Characters, 1869, has an account of hog-faced ladies and an engraving of "the Wonderful Miss Atkinson," born in Ireland, worth £20,000, but fed from a silver trough. Cf. also Ebsworth's notes in the Roxburghe Ballads, vm, 28.
The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, 1, 240. It is worth noting, also, that a Douce (1, 52, 62v) ballad of "The Daughter's Com-plaint"is directed to be sung to "The Spanish paving, or the Lovers Dream; or, Martin Parkers Medley." Parker's "Medley" {Roxburghe Ballads, 1, 52) is "to the Tune of Tarlton's Medley," which has hitherto been unknown but may now be identified with the Spanish Pavin. |
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