Annotation:New Exchange (The)

Back to New Exchange (The)

---

NEW EXCHANGE, THE. AKA - "Durham Stable." English, Country Dance Tune and Jig (6/4 or 6/8 time). G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The melody and country dance instructions were published in London by John Playford, in his English Dancing Master (1651). Appropriately, the couples exchange partners during the dance. William Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Times, notes these references:

In Wit and Drollery, 1656, p, no, is a song to this tune "On the Souldiers walking in the New Exchange to affront the Ladies." It begins:

I'll go no more to the New Exchange,
There is no room at all," &c.

In the same book, at p. 6b, is another song of six stanzas, beginning:

We'll go no more to Tunbridge Wells,
The journey is too far," &c.

In Westminster Drollery, part ii., 1671, is a third song, "to tune of I'll go no more to the New Exchange;" beginning:

Never will I wed a girl that's coy,
Nor one that is too free," &c.

In Wit Restored, in several select Poems, not formerly published, 1658, there are two songs, "The Burse of Reformation," 1 and "The Answer." The first commencing:

We will go no more to the Old Exchange,
There's no good ware at all;
Their bodkins, and their thimbles, too,
Went long since to Guildhall.
But we will go to the New Exchange,
Where all things are in fashion, &c.

And "The Answer":

We will go no more to the New Exchange,
Their credit's like to fall,
Their money and their loyalty
Is gone to Goldsmiths' Hall.
But we will keep our Old Exchange,
Where wealth is still in fashion, &c.

These have been reprinted in Satirical Songs and Poems on Costume, for the Percy Society, by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. "The New Exchange," in Merry Drollery Complete, 1670, p. 134, commencing:

I'll go no more to the Old Exchange,
There's no good ware at all;
But I will go to the New Exchange,
Call'd Haberdashers' Hall:
For there are choice of knacks and toys,
The fancy for to please.

King James I. named the New Exchange * The place appointed for the reception of "Britain's Burse," fines imposed upon the Royalists; and for loans, &c., to the Puritanic party.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barlow (The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master), 1985; No. 68, p. 31. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 37.

Recorded sources: Harmonia Mundi, Jeremy Barlow & The Broadside Band - "John Playford: Popular Tunes in 17th Century England."

---