Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

Share page


THE BOAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND.		443

play of " Macbeth," which is almost universally attributed to Lock. Leveridge's music was performed January 25, 1704. Lock's music, which was composed half a century earlier, is entirely different. When Leveridge was over sixty years old, he thought his voice still so good that he offered a wager of a hundred guineas, to sing a bass song with any man in England. He sang in pantomime when over eighty, personating Pluto, Neptune, and other heathen divinities. His companions secured an annual sum for his support until his death, March 22, 1758, at the age of eighty-eight.



Our fathers of old were robust, stout, and strong, And kept open house with good cheer all da)' long, Which made their plump tenants rejoice in this song, Oh I the roast beef, etc. When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne, Ere coffee and tea and such slipslops were known, The world was in terror if e'en she did frown. Oh ! the roast beef, etc.	In those days, if fleets did presume on the main, They seldom or never return'd back again ; As witness the vaunting Armada of Spain. Oh ! the roast beef, etc. Oh, then we had the stomachs to eat and to fight, And when wrongs were cooking, to set ourselves right, But now we're a—hum !—I could, but—good night! Oh ! the roast beef, etc.