If The Death of General Wolfe: Together with John Bull’s Description of a Church was written for the common reader if not directly by one, "Death of General Wolfe" on this broadside beginning “In a sad mould’ring cave” was addressed to a different cultural world. It was written for the more sophisticated singer who patronized concerts and theaters, played and sang parlor songs, and understood classical allusions. The author, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), was an Anglo-American political theorist and writer who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1774 with letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. Soon becoming involved in the disputes between the colonies and England, he wrote these verses, had them “set to music by a gentleman of this country,” and then published the song in the Pennsylvania Magazine in March l775, using the pseudonym “Atlanticus” and noting that “Most of our heroes, both ancient and modern, are celebrated in song of some kind or other; But as I know of none which pays that tribute to our immortal Wolfe, I herewith send you one. I have not pursued the worn out tract of modern song but have thrown it into fable.” This “fable” is explained in part by Paine’s footnote to the second line of the third verse as “The heathen mythology, after describing the defeat of the giants by Jupiter, says, that he confined them under mountains, &c.” The fable idea was hardly an innovation. The literary conceit of clothing eminent contemporaries in the mantle of Greek and Roman mythology was a contemporary practice and one that would have appealed to Isaiah Thomas for its learned associations (Sutherland 141-44).
Paine’s poem appeared in the third number of the Pennsylvania Magazine. It was the second issue for which Paine served as contributing editor. His presence on the staff had made a difference. According to a letter from Paine to Franklin, which is essentially supported by an independent account from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the subscription list more than doubled from 600 to 1,500 after Paine’s works appeared. Rush gave some of the credit for that growth to this song: “His song upon the death of General Wolfe, and his reflections upon the death of Lord Clive, gave it [the magazine] a sudden currency which few works of the kind have since had in our country” (Conway 1:40-41).
As with The Death of General Wolfe: Together with John Bull’s Description of a Church, it has been assumed by some that Paine’s ballad was written soon after Wolfe’s death in October 1759. But an 1833 American songbook reports that
Mr. P. wrote this song, with a view of its being presented to the committee of management for erecting a monument to the memory of Wolfe, by whom a premium had been offered for the most approved piece on the subject. It was, however, never presented, but made its first appearance in a periodical publication in Philadelphia, with which Mr. P. had some connexion, in the early part of the American Revolution. As might have been expected, it soon found its way into the columns of almost every journal on both sides of the Atlantic: a decisive evidence of the success of the piece, had it been presented. (Graham 2:85n)
The work of the London committee of management is reflected in twenty-one epitaphs, inscriptions, and poetic effusions that were published in The Gentleman’s Magazine between August 1772 and October 1773 but Paine’s text is not among them. Therefore, Paine could have written his verses for that quasi-literary competition and not submitted them but had them in his baggage when he came to America in late fall 1774.
Paine’s text appeared in several American songsters and manuscripts, and its music was indicated for several other texts and parodies, including two during the Revolution that laud Generals Warren and Montgomery (R. Keller; Corry; Roud). Curiously, a second musical setting of the text, a variant of “Once the Gods of the Greeks,” appeared in The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany (1:284-86) and was repeated in the American Patriotic Song Book. A third setting appears in the Baltimore Musical Miscellany. However, the Pennsylvania Magazine music was by far the best known for this text (Schrader, “Songs” 1:109).
This Wolfe text is also paired with a comic text, an entertainment sometimes referred to as a cantefable, song verses with intermittent monologue. In the Universal Songster the text of "Tippy Jack’s Journey to Brighton" is credited to C. F. Barrett. It is a takeoff of an amusing song by William Cowper (1731-1800) called "The Diverting History of John Gilpin" (1782) that begins
John Gilpin was a citizen
Of credit and renown
A train-band captain eke was he
Of famous London town.
The opening verse echoes the opening of Chevy Chase, which is given as the indicated tune on the print titled "The Extraordinary and Facetious History of John Gilpin" (George 6:#6887). First published in the Public Advertiser in 1782, "John Gilpin" appeared in a chapbook a year later and was soon performed on the stage, introduced into recitations in 1785 with astonishing success. It appeared in several songsters (George #6886-6902). Prints showing the town yokel on his horse illustrated the song on several sheets, and several sequels followed.
In Barrett’s theatrical parody, Gilpin’s son heads for the beach colony of Brighton singing “ri um ti idity um, &c.” all the while. This new lyric is in six-eight time and will not work to the duple meter tune “Chevy Chase” as called for on the print, nor does it fit the 6/8 country dance tune called “John Gilpin” published in 1785 (Twenty-Four Country Dances 26)—the cadences are also wrong for this text.
