“SALLY IN OUR ALLEY”

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 December 1934, Page 3

“SALLY IN OUR ALLEY”

ITS AUTHOR’S TRAGEDY. Henry Carey, one of those authors who are despised in their own time for the want of status in life and of pretensions to learning, was the author of both the words and music of “God Save the King,” wrote an amusingburlesque of “Chronohotonthologos,” and he was the author also of that old favourite song “Sally In Our Alley”:. Of all the girls that are so smart, There’s none like pretty Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. Carey’s own account of the origin of "Sally In Our Alley” presents a delightful picture: “A shoemaker’s apprentice, making holiday with his

sweetheart,-treated her with a sight of Bedlam, the puppet-shows, the flyingchairs, and all the 'elegance of Moorfields; from whence, proceeding to the Farthing Pyehouse, he gave her a collection of buns, cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuffed beef, and bottled ale; through all which scenes the author dodged them (charmed with the simplicity of their courtship), from whence he drew this little sketch of Nature; but being then young and obscure, he was very much ridiculed for this performance; which, nevertheless made its way into the polite world, and amply recompensed by the applause of the divine Addison, who was more pleased than once to mention it with approbation.” “Poor Carey,” says D’lsraeli, “the delight of the Muses, and delighting with the Muses, experienced all their trials and all their treacheries. At the time that this poet could neither walk the streets,

nor be seated at the convivial board, without listening to his own songs and his own music—for in truth the whole nation was echoing his verse, and .crowded theatres were clapping to his wit and humour —while this man himself, urged by his strong, humanity, had founded a fund for decayed musicians—at this moment was poor Carey himself so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts so utterly* neglected’, that, in despair, not waiting for Nature to relieve him from the burden of existence, lie. laid violent hands on himself, and, when found dead, had only a halfpenny in his pocket. was the fate of the author of some of the most popular pieces in our language.”