The words of a later Scottish version of “Clout the Cauldron,” beginning “Hae ye ony pots or pans, Or ony broken Chandlers?” (attributed by Allan Cunningham to one Gordon) retouched by Allan Ramsay, are in his _Tea-Table Miscellany_, 1724, Pt. i. (p. 96 of 17th edit., 1788.) Burns mentions a tradition that the song “was composed on one of the Kenmure family in the Cavalier time.” But the disguised wooer of the later version is repulsed by the lady. Ours is undoubtedly the earlier.
The music to this is given in Chappell’s _Pop. Music of Olden Time_ [1855], p. 255, from the _Dancing Master_, 1650-65, and _Musick’s Delight on the Cithern_, 1666, where the tune bears the title “Upon a Summer’s day.” In Pepy’s Collection, vol. i. are two other songs to the same tune.
Page 153 [Suppl. 3]. _Mine own sweet honey, &c._
Evidently a parody, or “Mock” of “Come hither, my own,” &c., for which, and note, see pp. 247, 367.
A different version of this same song, only half its length, in four-line stanzas, had appeared in J. Cotgrave’s _Wit’s Interpreter_, 1655, p. 124. It is also in the 1671 edition, p. 229; and in _Wit and Drollery_, 1682 edit., 287, entitled “The Tobacconist.” We prefer the briefer version, although bound to print the longer one; bad enough, but not nearly so gross as another On Tobacco, in _Jovial Drollery_, 1656, beginning “When I do smoak my nose with a pipe of Tobacco.”
In the Collection of Songs by the Wits of the Age, appended to _Le Prince d’Amour_, 1660, (but on broadsheet, 1641) we find the following far-superior lyric on
_To feed on Flesh is Gluttony,_ _It maketh men fat like swine._ _But is not he a frugal Man_ _That on a leaf can dine!_
_He needs no linnen for to foul,_ _His fingers ends to wipe,_ _That hath his Kitchin in a Box,_ _And roast meat in a Pipe._
_The cause wherefore few rich mens sons_ _Prove disputants in Schools,_ _Is that their fathers fed on flesh,_ _And they begat fat fools._
_This fulsome feeding cloggs the brain,_ _And doth the stomack cloak;_ _But he’s a brave spark that can dine_ _With one light dish of smoak._
_Audi alterem partem!_ Five years earlier (May 28th, 1655), William Winstanley had published “A Farewell to Tobacco,” beginning:—