The woodman. Together with The woodman's hut, and Maid of Lodi

Of the three theatrical songs on this broadside, two are by Charles Dibdin, the third by William Shield. The first is a comic yet philosophical survey. Dibdin’s “Woodman” was written for The Wags (1790)—the text is entirely distinct from songs in Shield’s comic opera The Woodman (1791)—and is a catalog of the things that modern society makes from the simple woodcutter’s felled trees, from the whore’s wheelbarrow to the gibbet, from chairs to wine presses (Schnapper 948, 280). The last verse on the Thomas broadside is an American addition, a patriotic reference to the ships of the new national navy. The text was printed in the Boston Gazette on January 16, 1812. It appeared in thirty-six songsters between 1798 and 1820, and appeared in songsters, broadsides, and slip sheets well into the nineteenth century (R. Keller, Early American Songsters; Wolfe, Secular Music #2525-27; Roud).

The Woodman’s Hut, a song of puns, was written by Charles Dibdin for Michael Kelly’s Forty Thieves (1806). Like “The Woodman,” the topic is wood, but here the comedy consists of a series of clever puns by the woodman as he responds to the snobbish attitudes of the physician and the dancing master who have taken refuge in his home. Finally the woodman sends the two off, telling them to “take their leaves” and their “wooden” heads as well. The song appeared in twenty-five songsters between 1807 and 1820 (R. Keller; Wolfe, Secular Music #4927-31). Samuel Arnold wrote a full entertainment entitled The Woodman’s Hut in 1814, but this song predates that work.

Lodi is on the Adda River in Lombardy, Italy, between Milan and Mantua. From information on various sheet music editions of “The Maid of Lodi,” the tune is Venetian, one that William Shield collected with a song entitled “La mia crudel tiranna” when he was traveling in Italy in 1791 (Wolfe, Secular Music #8089-99a). The Battle of Lodi occurred during Napoleon’s Italian campaign, on May 10, 1796, when his troops stormed the bridge, perhaps giving impetus to Shield’s song, first published shortly after 1800.

Two broadsides in the Thomas collection have texts called “The Maid of Lodi,” the one shown here and The Girl of My Heart. It appears that several translations of the Italian song were published. Shield’s original text began “I sing the Maid of Lodi, who sweetly sung to me.” It is a paean to the healthy Italian girl who is happy with her station in life. The verses on The Girl of My Heart appear to be a different translation of the same general text and appear on several sheet music editions (R. Keller, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources). The compiler of the Boston Musical Miscellany printed a slightly different translation of the verses as they appeared on The Girl of My Heart, but when he typeset page 186 he confessed that the earlier verses were the “best he could find adapted to the air” (110-11). He then inserted three verses that appear to be an entirely different translation of the same text, with the comment that “the vocalist will undoubtedly prefer the following.” This song begins “I sing the Maid of Lodi, sweet soother of my toil” and was repeated in the 1815 edition with the original music.

The tune was very popular in America. The text gained two parodies in 1810 and 1811. New words in the same general sentiment “by Miss Balfour” were printed in the New York Columbian on October 17, 1810, and an amusingly negative parody appeared in the Columbian on May 25, 1811. The headnote from the contributor, “Fudge,” declares that

The Maid of Lodi has been celebrated all over the world in songs, parodies, &c. &c. To what has been already said about her ladyship, you may add the following, which probably comes as near the truth as any that has gone before.

The lyrics begin:

I sing the maid of Lodi, though she ne’er sung to me:
Her brows are often cloudy, for old and cross is she.