Great Albion’s name shall be
The theme of Fame, shall be great Albion’s name,
Great Albion’s name, great Albion’s name.
Record the garter’s glory;
A badge for heroes, and for kings to bear;
For kings to bear!
And swell the immortal story,
With songs of Gods, and fit for Gods to hear;
And swell the immortal story,
With songs of Gods, and fit for Gods to hear;
For Gods to hear.
A full Chorus of all the Voices and Instruments; trumpets and hautboys make Ritornello’s of all FAME sings; and twenty-four Dancers, all the time in a chorus, and dance to the end of the Opera.
Footnotes:
1. The reader must recollect the orders of the
Rump parliament to
general Monk, to destroy the gates
and portcullises of the city of
London; which commission, by the
bye, he actually executed, with
all the forms of contempt, although,
in a day or two after, he took
up his quarters in the city, apologized
for what had passed, and
declared against the parliament.
2. Dr. Titus Oates, the principal witness to
the Popish Plot, was
accused of unnatural and infamous
crimes. He was certainly a most
ineffably impudent, perjured villain.
3. The Chacon is supposed by Sir John Hawkins
to be of Moorish or
Saracenic origin. “The
characteristic of the Chacone is a bass, or
ground, consisting of four measures,
wherein three crotchets make
the bar, and the repetition thereof
with variations in the several
parts, from the beginning to the
end of the air, which in respect
of its length, has no limit but
the discretion of the composer. The
whole of the twelfth sonata of the
second opera of Corelli is a
Chacone.” Hist. of Music,
vol. iv. p. 388. There is also, I am
informed, a very celebrated Chacon
composed by Jomelli.
4. By the White Boys or Property Boys,
are meant the adherents of
the Duke of Monmouth, who affected
great zeal for liberty and
property, and assumed white badges,
as marks of the innocence of
their intentions. When the
Duke came to the famous Parliament held
at Oxford, “he was met by
about 100 Batchellors all in white,
except black velvet caps, with white
wands in their hands, who
divided themselves, and marched
as a guard to his person.” Account
of the Life of the Duke of Monmouth,
p. 107. In the Duke’s tour
through the west of England, he
was met at Exeter, by “a brave
company of brisk stout young men,
all cloathed in linen waistcoats
and drawers, white and harmless,
having not so much as a stick in
their hands; they were in number
about 900 or 1000.” ibid. p.
103. See the notes on Absalom
and Achitophel. The saints, on the
other hand, mean the ancient republican
zealots and fanatics, who,
though they would willingly have
joined in the destruction of
Charles, did not wish that Monmouth
should succeed him, but aimed
at the restoration of the commonwealth.
Hence the following dispute
betwixt Tyranny and Democracy.