MAN ON THE WIRE, THE. English, Country Dance Tune (cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody is unique to London publishers Charles and Samuel Thompson's 1757 country dance collection. The title probably refers to wire dancers, who, like rope dancers, were a fad for a time in 18th century England. George Anne Bellamy & Alexander Bicknell, for example, writing in An apology for the life of George Anne Bellamy, late of Covent Garden Theatre (1786) remarks:
A female wire-dancer at Sadler's Wells
About this time Mr. Rich got up a new pantomime, which he called "The Fair," the mostindifferent entertainment of that species he had ever fabricated. In it he introduced a celebrated wire-dancer; a measure which greatly disgusted [actor] Mr. Quinn. So much displeased was this gentleman, that after saying it was an insult offered to the Theatre-Royal to put it on a footing with [the pleasure-garden] Sadler's Wells, he declared that, if the eventtook place he would not appear in any piece that should precede it. Mr. Rich, who was, as I have already said, the most resolute of men, when once his natural indolence had permitted him to form a resolution, however, persisted in it, and it was accordingly brought out.
The Celebrated Miss Wilkinson, the female Wire Dancer
In order to make her court to the great man, Mrs. [actress Peg] Woffington likewise refused to appear. Mr. Rich had not, at this time, come to an open rupture with her. The refusal of this lady was reckoned the more extraordinary, and drew on her the greater degree of censure, as there was a report current, that when a child she had been what is usually termed a make-weight to Madam Violente, the first wire-dancer that ever appeared in Ireland. [p. 78]
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Thompson (Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 1), 1757; No. 70.
