Bonny Annie's Elopement (1803, Glasgow)/None So Pretty

by Anonymous

For other versions of this work, see None So Pretty.

Text divider from 'Bonny Annie's Elopement', a chapbook printed in Glasgow in 1803

NONE SO PRETTY.

This life is like a country dance,The world a spacious hall room,In which so many take a prance,They scarcely find for all room;Fiddlers and pipers in a row,See how the ranks are closing,Each strives his neighbour’s faults to shew,While he’s his own exposing.

Pray, Ma'am, what dance have you call’d? Matrimony, Ma’am. The figure is extremely easy, you turn single, run away with your partner, head up the middle, back to back, part and change partners.

CHORUSThus busied in the fond turmoil,They time by folly measure,Turn all their pleasure into toil,And fancy toil a pleasure.

Some in full dance with ardour burn,And swim, and glide, and wander,While others waiting for their turn,Sneer, smile, and deal out slander;And so the Count must run away!Why really I'm afraid so;His (illegible text) has ruin’d him at play,Poor man, I always said so.

O no doubt about it, kept by a Physician before she came to the Count, duel with a young apothecary; syrenges loaded with analeptic pills. ’Tisyour turn to begin, Sir. Sir, I beg your pardon.

Chor. Thus busied in the fond turmoil, etc,

Away they prance it, small and big.Brown, ginger, fair, and grizzle,O Ma'am! you disconcert my wig,’Twas you, Sir, touz’d my frizzle!Right hand and left, the figure mind,O! what are you about, Ma’am?My dear Miss Giggle you are blind.My Lady Fuz you’re out, Ma’am!

Oh Ma’am! you should consider that the dance is my Lord Mayor’s feast———it begins with a set to, and finishes with a reel.

CHORUS.Thus busied in the fond turmoil,They time by folly measure, etc.

Thus dance succeeding after dance,As if Old Nick had got ’em,They scandal vent, and flirt and prance.And foot it to the bottom;Thus having made for others sport,In regular rotation,With swinging interest they retortOn them the obligation.

Surprizing! did you ever see such a fright as that woman! rubbed it all off one side of her face.—But look at that man what a scarcrow he is, with his false calves turned before.———Come, come Ladies and Gentlemen, a new dance; strike up None so Pretty.

CHORUS.

Thus busied in the fond turmoil,They time by folly measure,Turn all their pleasure into toil,And fancy toil a pleasure.

Text divider from 'Bonny Annie's Elopement', a chapbook printed in Glasgow in 1803

Printed by J. & M. Robertson, Saltmarket, 1803