From the letter of the Squire the reader will see how truthfully the great English Beranger, as he has been called, adhered to the circumstances in his song:—
“You all knew Tom Moody, the whipper-in, well. The bell that’s done tolling was honest Tom’s knell; A more able sportsman ne’er followed a hound Through a country well known to him fifty miles round. No hound ever open’d with Tom near a wood, But he’d challenge the tone, and could tell if it were good; And all with attention would eagerly mark, When he cheer’d up the pack, ‘Hark! to Rockwood, hark! hark! Hie!—wind him! and cross him! Now, Rattler, boy! Hark!’
“Six crafty earth-stoppers, in hunter’s green drest, Supported poor Tom to an earth made for rest. His horse, which he styled his ‘Old Soul,’ next appear’d, On whose forehead the brush of his last fox was rear’d: Whip, cap, boots, and spurs, in a trophy were bound, And here and there followed an old straggling hound. Ah! no more at his voice yonder vales will they trace! Nor the welkin resound his burst in the chase! With high over! Now press him! Tally-ho! Tally-ho!
“Thus Tom spoke his friends ere he gave up his breath: ‘Since I see you’re resolved to be in at the death, One favour bestow—’tis the last I shall crave, Give a rattling view-halloo thrice over my grave; And unless at that warning I lift up my head, My boys, you may fairly conclude I am dead!’ Honest Tom was obeyed, and the shout rent the sky, For every one joined in the tally-ho cry! Tally-ho! Hark forward! Tally-ho! Tally-ho!”
On leaving Willey, Mr. Forester asked Dibdin what he could do to discharge the obligation he felt himself under for his services; the great ballad writer, whom Pitt pensioned, replied “Nothing;” he had been so well treated that he could not accept anything. Finding artifice necessary, Mr. Forester asked him if he would deliver a letter for him personally at his banker’s on his arrival in London. Of course Dibdin consented, and on doing so he found it was an order to pay him £100!
When the song first came out Charles Incledon, by the “human voice divine,” was drawing vast audiences at Drury Lane Theatre. On play-bills, in largest type, forming the most attractive morceaux of the bill of fare, this song, varied by others of Dibdin’s composing, would be seen; and when he was first announced to sing it, a few fox-hunting friends of the Squire went to London to hear it. Taking up their positions in the pit, they were all attention as the inimitable singer rolled out, with that full volume of voice which at once delighted and astounded his audience, the verse commencing:—