Annotation:Would You have a Young Virgin
X:1 T: Would You Have a Young Virgin T:Poor Robin's Maggot M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Country Dance B: Young – Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 1st edition (1710, p. 148) K:F A/B/|cdc cdc|f2c c2 A/B/|cdc cdc|g2c c2A/B/| cdc cdc|f2c g2c|agf cfe|f2F F2:| |:f/g/|agf agf|g2c c2f/g/|agf agf|b2g g2 f/g/| agf agf|agf bag|agf ede|f2F F2:|]
WOULD YOU HAVE A YOUNG VIRGIN (OF FIFTEEN YEARS). AKA and see “Native (La),” "Poor Robin's Maggot,” “Saw Ye a Lassie of Fifteen." English, Air (6/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was published by John Gay in his Beggar's Opera (1729), where it appears as "If the heart of a man is deprest with cares," the first line of the song. The tune was also employed in the ballad operas Livery Rake and Country Lass (London, 1733), The Female Rake (London, 1736), “Would you have a young virgin of fifteen years” is the title Thomas D’Urfy used for his song set to the melody in his play The Modern Prophets (1709) in the time of the reign of Charles II [1660-1685], although he also published it in his Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. 1 (1719, pg. 132). The tune was said to have been an old one at the time, with an earlier name being “Poor Robin's Maggot.”
Would ye have a young virgin of fifteen years,
You must tickle her fancy with sweats and dears,
Ever toying, and playing, and sweetly, sweetly,
Sing her a love sonnet and charm her ears,
Wittily, prettily, talk her down,
Chase her, praise her, if fair or browns,
Sooth her and smooth her,
And tease her and please her,
And touch but her smicket, and all’s your own. (smicket=a woman’s undergarment)
In addition to the ballad operas, the tune was used for dancing and appears in John Young’s editions of Playford’s Dancing Master of 1718 as “Would You Court a Young Virgin: or, Poor Robin’s Maggot” (a maggot was a trifle, or plaything, whim, or fancy; from the Italian maggioletta), and again in Dancing Master vol. II, 4th ed. 1728, 148. In 1719 it appeared in J. Walsh’s Compleat Country Dancing Master, vol. 2 (London, p. 167), and John and William Neal printed it in Dublin c. 1726 in A Choice Collection of Country Dances, with their Proper Tunes (p. 14). In the 19th century the tune was incorporated into the stylish and popular “Lancer’s Quadrilles” as the third (jig) movement, entitled “La Native.” See also the Irish dance derivative, in the form of a slide, under the title “I'd rather be married than left.” T. Westrop included it in his 120 Country Dances, Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, Spanish Waltz, etc. for the Pianoforte (London, No. 30), although under the title “If the Heart of a Man” (i.e. the Beggar’s Opera song title). “Wou’d you have a young virgin” also appears in several 19th century musicians’ manuscript collections, including the Thomas Hardy family (Dorset), Thomas Hammersley (London, 1790), and two untitled manuscripts from the mid-19th century.