Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment c. 1980.
According to Professor Scott, this song helps to illustrate that the Victorian attitude to drink was not one of universal disapprobation. The emphasis, however, is on moderation. (Compare the later temperance song, "Throw Out the Life-line!")
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Last modified 10 September 2007