Annotation:Sweet Nelly My Heart's Delight
X:1 T:Sweet Nelly My Heart's Delight L:1/8 M:6/8 R:Air S:Chappell – Popular Music of the Olden Time (1859) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D|G>AG B2c|(d3 d2)e|d>cB ABG|(E3 E2)D| G>FE A2A|B>AG c2B|ABG G2F|(G3G2)|| D|G>AG G2G|A>BA A2A|B^cd d2c|(d3d2)d|dcB ABc| BdG E2D|G>FE A2A|B>AG C2B|ABG G2F|(G3G2)||
SWEET NELLY MY HEART'S DELIGHT. AKA – “Farmer’s Son (The).” English, Air (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The song [Roud #8506], called "The Farmer's Son" or (from the first line, "Sweet Nelly, My Heart's Delight") appears in John Walsh's The Merry Musician; or, A Cure for the Spleen (1728), Walsh's British Musical Miscellany (1734), Vocal Miscellany; A Collection of About Four Hundred Celebrated Songs (1729), Watts' Musical Miscellany (1729, pp. 130-132), Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany (p. 147), and on broadside issues. Perhaps the first printing was in The Hive (III, 1725, p. 79). As "Sweet Nelly" it is in Daniel Wright's Compleat Tutor for ye Flute (c. 1735).
Sweet Nelly, my heart’s delight,
Be loving and no not slight
The proffer I make, for modesty’s sake;
I honour your beauty bright.
For love I profess, I can do no less,
Thou has my favour won;
And since I see your modesty,
I pray you agree, And fancy me,
Tho’ I’m but a farmer’s son.
“Sweet Nelly” was also the indicated tune for songs in John Watts' ballad opera The Lover’s Opera (London, 1730), The Beau in the Suds (1729) and Henry Lintot’s The Footman (London, 1732). The song is anonymous, and was apparently older than the 1720's. One note on the song gives: "It was evidently founded on an old black-letter dialogue preserved in the Roxburgh collection, called "A Mad Kinde of Wooing; or, A Dialogue Between Will the Simple and Nan the Subtill, With Their Loving Argument." To the tune of the New Dance at the Red Bull Playhouse. Printed by the assignees of Thomas Symcock."
