Annotation:All in a Misty Morning

Chappell (1859) finds early references to a ballad called "Frere and the Nunne" in accounts dating from 1542 and 1592. John Gay prints the tune under the title "Before the barn door crowing," from a song in his Beggar's Opera (1729, Air XXIII), but the air also appears in other ballad operas. It appears in Pills to Purge Melancholy as "The Wiltshire Wedding" (and twice with other names); and in Playford's Dancing Master (1650) and Musick's Delight on the Cithren (1666) as "The Friar and the Nun."