Death of General Wolfe, together with Susan's lamentation

This broadside contains three texts: “Death of General Wolfe,” “Susan’s Lamentation,” and “Pretty Deary.”

The lyrics to "Pretty Deary" are a recast of the winter/spring theme in which a young fortune hunter seeks out wealthy old men or women to marry for their money (see Robin Bohugh’s and The Old Man and Young Wife). In this case, a more handsome beau beat the narrator to the job and made off with the cash. In the Universal Songster the lyrics are credited to Charles Dibdin (3:104). The lyric was reprinted in the New York Shamrock; or, Hibernian Chronicle on November 5, 1814. The text appeared in eleven songsters between 1811 and 1820 (R. Keller) and was parodied in The Humourist (45) with a text beginning “Adown a dark alley I courted a maid.” Seconding and amplifying this attribution, a sheet music edition “written by C. Dibdin, Junr [and] William Reeve” was offered for sale on the Internet in 2006. This description suggests that the tune was by Dibdin’s oft-time collaborator, William Reeve (1757-1815).