Annotation:Primrose Girl (4)
X:1 T:Primrose Girl [4], The M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air N:Melody line to song only transcribed B:Pownall & Hewitt - Six Songs for the Harpsichord or Pianoforte (1794) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G G|ddd d2e|ABc {c}B2 d/c/|BGG GEc|GFG {B}A2 d/c/|BGG cAA| de=f {f}!fermata![c2e2]G|g (g/e/)(g/e/) dBz|g(g/e/)(g/e/) dBz|cBe (d!fermata!g) (c/d/4e/4)|{e}d2 F G2z||
PRIMROSE GIRL [4] English, American; Air (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. This English broadside song [Roud No: V5448] air appears in several American instrumental tutors, song collections, and music and dance manuscripts in the early decades of the 19th century. It was sung in New York's Columbia Garden by Mrs. Hodgkinson on July 6, 1798. It originally was heard in the pantomime The Sultan (1790), music by prolific songwriter John Moulds, sung by Mrs. [Maria Theresa] Bland at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Printed versions can be found in Pownall & Hewitt's Six Songs for the Harpsichord or Pianoforte [1] (New York, 1794, No. 8, p. 16) and Bland & Weller's New and Compleat Instructions for the Clarionet (London, c. 1798). The ballad goes:
Come buy of poor Kate, primroses I sell,
Thro' London's fam'd city I'm known mighty well;
Tho' my heart is quite sunk, yet I constantly cry,
Come who'll buy primroses, who'll buy primroses,
Who'll buy primroses, who'll buy, who'll buy.
Friends and parents I've none, I am look'd on with scorn,
Ah! better for me that I ne'er had been born,
Tho' poor I am honest, and oft heave the sigh,
While crying primroses, who'll buy primroses,
Who'll buy primroses, who'll buy, who'll buy.
Ir pity to virtue were ever allied,
The tear of compassion ne'er yet was denied,
Then pity poor Kate, who plaintively cries,
Come who'll buy primroses, who'll buy primroses,
Who'll buy primroses, who'll buy, who'll buy.