The “Landlady of France” was performed as a paean to drinking in the drama The Foundling of the Forest (1809) by William Dimond and was so popular that it was introduced into a number of later theatricals. While Michael Kelly is credited with arranging the score for the original show, a note in the libretto indicates that for this particular song and the lines that precede it “the author is indebted to the pen of George Colman, Esq.” (40). It was set to the tune of “Eveleen’s Bower,” an Irish tune also known as “Peggy of Derby O” or “The Dandy O,” the latter title reflected in the “Brandy O” burden of this song (Fleischmann, Sources #2083, #2604, #3240). The show had a number of performances in Boston between 1809 and 1815, with the music arranged for local forces by Victor Pelissier (Porter, With an Air 515, 451). The song circulated in early nineteenth-century sheet music and in songsters in England and America, appearing in thirty-eight songsters between 1811 and 1820 (Wolfe, Secular Music #4757-59; Roud; R. Keller, Early American Songsters).
“The Bottle of Rum” is another song on drinking, this time praising rum, probably an American text from the upper south, based on the third verse referring to tobacco and slaves. This song was sung by William Matthews “with unbounded applause” in Philadelphia, where it was published as “Crooskeen laun, A Favorite Irish Ballad.” According to Aloys Fleischmann An crúiscín lán means “the full jug” (Sources #4156). The text appeared in fifteen songsters between 1803 and 1818 (Wolfe, Secular Music #1905, #2219-21; R. Keller, Early American Songsters; “American Broadsides” 1:325, 4163, 5812).
Morgiana was Ali Baba’s clever servant in the old Arabian Nights tale. This song comes from a new “grand Operatic Romance,” a melodrama called The Forty Thieves; or, The Female Duelist (1806) by George Colman Jr. with music by Michael Kelly. Horace Walpole’s “New Arabian Nights Entertainment” may have been Colman’s inspiration (Porter, With an Air 451, 515; Wolfe, Secular Music #4741-48). Like “Landlady of France,” the score was arranged for performance in the United States by Victor Pelissier. It was performed forty-two times in Boston between 1810 and 1813, thus ensuring a market for Coverly’s broadside.
The somewhat flowery text appeared in twenty-five songsters between 1814 and 1820 and in at least two mid-nineteenth-century songsters—New England Pocket Songster (1846) and the Parlor Songster (ca. 1856)—but it does not seem to have spread further (R. Keller; Roud). As a dance tune title, “Morgiana” was widely popular, gaining extensions as “Morgiana in England,” as well as in France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, and even “in the Park” (Fleischmann, Sources #2167; R. Keller, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources).
