Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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	THE STORM.		121
	My coats I swallowed by degrees; the sleeves I breakfasted upou for two weeks; the body, skirts, &c, served me for dinner two months; my silk stockings have paid my lodg­ings, and two pair of new pumps enabled me to smoke several pipes. It is incredible how my appetite (barometer-like) rises in proportion as my necessities make their ter­rible advances. I here could say something droll about a stomach; but it's ill jesting with edged tools, and 1 am sure that is the sharpest thing about me." The wonder of his composing so fine a lyric as "The Storm," has led to a doubt whether he really did do it; but, the truth is, that he wrote other songs so famous in their day, that they were printed by various booksellers, without his consent, and very much to Ms disadvantage. "The Storm" has been attributed to no one else except Falconer, author of " The Shipwreck," and the only ground of such a claim was, that he might have done it—that it was somewhat in his line. But Falconer is neither lyrical nor spirited, and the picturesqueness of the song makes all but certain the claim of the actor-poet. Stevens lived in an age of deep drinking; and as the bowl was the especial inspirer of his verse, so it was the principal receiver of its praises. After several other unsuccessful attempts, he returned to the delivery of " Heads," which he was finally able to sell for money enough to pay for the last carousals of his life, which ended miserably in 1784. The original air to which "The Storm" is set was called, with queer appropriate­ness to the author's state, " Welcome, brother debtor." It appeared in a collection of
	songs called "Calliope," published in 1730	Incledon, the English vocalist, sang "The
	Storm " in this country with great effect.