The Chaplet, a collection of Twelve English Songs, 1738
Maurice Greene

This collection was published anonymously by John Walsh (the younger) of St Catherine Street, the Strand in March 1738. It is unusual not only in it's octavo format but also (for Walsh) in having it's date (MDCCXXXVII) printed on it's title page. There is, however, no mention of Greene as composer, though the volume was subsequently advertised with his name attached, and his authorship of no fewer than eight of the twelve songs can be established from other sources. Perhaps, like his volume of "Choice Lessons" from a few years earlier, this was another attempt at piracy. By February 1741, Walsh was advertising a fourth edition though this may have been no more than a reprint. The words of all the songs are by John Hoadly (who was the librettist of Greene's two pastoral operas, a masque and one of his two oratorios). As "The Boatswain's Whistle", the song 'Life is chequer'd' figures in Tobias Smollet's novel "The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle" (1751).Though all twelve songs are simple strophic settings, they cover a wide range and are by no means confined to the pangs of rural courtship; some are distinctly humourous, even rather vulgar, in tone, while three were obviously intended for convivial performance, with a unison choral refrain at the end of every verse. While some of the songs may charm (the direction 'Tenderly' appears more than once), the coarseness of others is clear. The Chorus of 'Love and Wine', for instance, should be sung by '... as many as Drink', 'An Excellent New Good Eating Song' by 'As many as have stomachs'. Even a cursory glance at the music and verse of this period and before shows this to be nothing out of the ordinary. The satirists of the time, impossibly, sound shocking even today.