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STORIES OF
was responsibleforits conception and production. It is believed to have been written any time between 1736 and 1740, and was generally accepted as an expression of public loyalty in 1745. Carey died, by the way, in 1743. But it is reported to been heard first in public at a dinner in 1740 to celebrate the taking of Porto-bello by Admiral Vernon (November 30th, l7Z9)> when Carey himself sang it as his own composition. Mr. William H. Cummings says the nearest known copy to that date is that given in the "Harmonia Anglicana" of 1743, to which Carey was one of the chief contributors of signed and unsigned matter. It is marked for two voices. The version of the melody which Chappell and Sir George Grove give is slightly different from one that I came across in an odd volume which I picked up by accident It is a very quaint collection of songs, madrigals, glees, catches, and so forth, for " two, three, and four voices." Unfortunately there is no title-page, no printer, and no publisher mentioned, but from internal evidence I should think the first edition of the book was published between 1763 and 1770. My own edition is evidently a reprint from old plates, and bears the water-mark on the paper of 1816. The first piece in the book is "God Save Great George our
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