X: 1
T:Tumble Down Dick. JJo3.177
B:J.Johnson Choice Collection Vol 3 1744
Z:vmp.Anne Wride 2014 www.village-music-project.org.uk
M:C|
L:1/8
Q:1/2=100
K:F
cAGF f2ed | c2c4Bc | dBAG cAGF | EFG4AB |
cAGF fedc | =Bc d4ef | gedc fdc=B | c8 ||
ged^c dcBA | def4e2 | fdc=B cBcG | cde4f2 |
cAGF f2ed | ceb4ag | agaf c2e2 | f8|]
W:First Man foot it, cast off and figure round the 2d. Wo. turn the 3d. Man & stnad in the 2d. Man's Place
W:His Partner do the same and stand in the 2d. Wo. Place
W:Right and Left with the 2d. Cu. then coss over & turn below the 3d. Cu
W:Go the Figure of Eight and turn into the 2d. Cu. Place.
"The Posting House Tumbledown Dick", by Thomas Rowlandson, 1782.TUMBLE DOWN DICK. English, Air or Country Dance (whole time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. “Tumble Down Dick” was printed by John Johnson in his Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3 (London, 1744) and by John Walsh in the Compleat Country Dancing Master, Volume the Fifth (London, 1754). The country dance apparently derived from Henry Fielding’s (1707-1754) Tumble Down Dick; or, Phaeton in Suds, a burlesque of a pantomime produced in London in 1736 in the first year of Fielding’s tenure as the Little Haymarket theatre manager. "Tumble Down Dick" was also a satirical nickname given to Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, after his abrupt fall from power after a brief nine-month reign in 1658–59. 'Tumble Down Dick' was also the name of at least one pub or inn--one such establishment was open for a few hundred years in Farnbourough, Hampshire, closed after it badly needed refurbishing. In John Johnson's time it was used in the billeting of troops in transit with five beds and stabling for five horses.
The melody also appears in the 1840 music manuscript collection of Cumbrian musician John Rook.
