Brave Corsican (The)
BRAVE CORSICAN, THE. English, Air (6/8 time) or Jig. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody appear unique in publication to Charles and Samuel Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3 (London, 1773), as "The Brave Corsicans." It also appears in the 1840 music manuscript collection of Cumbrian musician John Rook. There was considerable sympathy for the Corsicans who resisted occupation of their island in the mid-18th century by the French, despite the islands having been legitimately sold to France by Genoa, who had held it for centuries. James Boswell, Dr. Johnson's anamnesis, published a volume early in 1769 in support of them called British Essays in Favor of the Brave Corsicans, and was characterized in at least one paper with a cartoon where he is called "Corsican Boswell." Similarly, when General Paoli escaped Corsica after his defeat later in 1769 and found asylum in Britain, Boswell renewed his acquaintance and friendship with him, and claimed that in Edinburgh he was called "Paoli Boswell."
Printed source: Thompson (Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3), 1773; No. 142.
X:1
T:Brave Corsican, The
M:6/8
L:1/8
S:John Rook manuscript (Cumbria, 1840)
Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion
K:A
cEA cBA|DFB dcB|Eec BAG|A[Ee][Dd] [Cc][B,B][A,A]|[Cc]EA cBA|
Bcd efg|agf ef^d|e3 e2::e|ABc def|gec d2d|Bcd efg|
af^d e2E|[Cc]EA DFd|Ece Fdf|edc BA^G|A3 A2:||
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