Annotation:Country Attorney (The)

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X:1 T:Country Attorney, The M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Country Dance B:Samuel, Ann & Peter Thompson -- Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 5 (1788, p. 2) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G G>G (3BAG|F>G A2|B>B (3dcB|(3ABG (3FED| G>G (3BAG|F>G A2|(3BcB (3AGF|G2 G,2:| |:g>ee>g|f>d (3dcB|e>cc>e|d>B (3BAG| c>AA>c|(3Bdc (3BAG|(3AcB (3AGF|G2 G,2:|]



COUNTRY ATTORNEY, THE. English, Country Dance (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The Country Attorney was a comic play by Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), staged at London's Theatre Royal in the Hay-Market, July 7th, 1787. Unfortunately, it was not well received and ran only a half-dozen nights. Cumberland reworked much of the same material a few years later for his The School for Widows (1789). He was not regarded in the first rank of playwrights, even by his peers.

Richard Cumberland

Thomas Davis acerbically dismissed him:

Mr. Cumberland is unquestionably a man of very great abilities; it is his misfortune to rate them greatly above their value.

Country dance directions appear in Nancy Shepley's Book, a small copybook of dance figures compiled by Nancy Shepley of Pepperell, Massachusetts, c. 1794.

The tune is in 2/4 time in the London publications from Longman, Lukey & Broderip and the Thompsons. It was converted to 6/8 time in the mid-19th century music manuscript collection of Manchester, England, musician biography:John Roose, with the title "Country Assembly"[1]. The tune also can be found in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter (1774-1861), a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.


Additional notes



Printed sources : - Longman, Lukey & Broderip (Bride's Favourite Collection of 200 Select Country Dances, Cotillons), c. 1776; Part 3, p. 85. Samuel, Ann & Peter Thompson (Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 5), 1788; p. 2. Geoff Woolfe (William Winter’s Quantocks Tune Book), 2007; No. 274, p. 101 (ms. originally dated 1850).






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  1. The title "Country Assembly" is probably a mishearing of "Country Assembly", or a misreading of the handwritten title in the manuscript.