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POETRYETC  2002

POETRYETC 2002

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Subject:

Larry again

From:

Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 8 Mar 2002 21:03:31 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (119 lines)

> I find myself strangely interested here Robin!
>
> Thanks for the post
>
> Liz

Liz,

If you're thinking of Larry, I'd better insert a few qualifications (and an
addition).

In my original post, and the quick grab of a text from the Web, I was going
on my memory of where I'd first read the poem. (I +thought+ this was in
Robert Graves' ballad anthology, but when I looked, 'twasn't there. Help,
someone -- anybody know if it was ever anthologised by Graves?)

In the course of hunt-a-Web-text, I came on a version beginning thus:

De night before Larry was stretched,
de boys dey all paid him a visit
A bit in deir sacks too dey fetched,
dey swated deir duds till dey ris it

http://www.prof.co.uk/irish/lyrics/larry_stretched.htm

I thought (naturally enough, as it seemed to me at the time) "Sod that for a
joke," and ignored it.

Later, diving deeper into the small hours of the morning, I did a bit more
googling for Larry, and came on this:

"A man named Lambert was an outcast of a respectable family, and was known
thus to have spent his last precious moments; and it was on him the
celebrated song of "De nite afore Larry was stretched" is supposed to have
been written. He was a cripple, paralytic on one side, but of irreclaimable
habits. He was at once ferocious and cowardly, and was reported to have
always counselled murdering those whom he had robbed. When on his way to
execution, he shrieked, and clung with his hands to whatever was near him,
and was dragged with revolting violence, by the cord about his neck, to the
gallows from which he fell.

The celebrated song composed on him has acquired a lasting fame, not only as
a picture of manners, but of phraseology now passed away; and its authorship
is a subject of as much controversy as the letters of Junius. Report has
conferred the reputation of it on Burrowes, Curran, Lysaght, and others, who
have never asserted their claims. We shall mention one more claimant whose
pretensions are equal to those of any other. There was at that time, a man
named Maher, in Waterford, who kept a cloth shop at the market cross; he had
a distorted ancle [stet. KF], and was known by the sobriquet of "Hurlfoot
Bill." He was "a fellow of infinite humour," and his compositions on various
local and temporary subjects were in the mouths of all his acquaintance ...
"

Chapter VIII.

Slang Songs - Prison Usages - The Night Before Larry Was Stretched -
Kilmainham Minit - Executioners - Bull Baiting - Lord Altham's Bull - The
Bush.

Dublin 120 Years ago (the entire chapter, and I suspect the entire book, is
a gem!):

http://indigo.ie/~kfinlay/60years%20ago/chapter8.htm

"De nite afore Larry was stretched" -- ah, shit, got it wrong, didn't I?
The text I skipped over was obviously the authentic one.

Or was it? It's obviously closer (the guy who wrote the above was near in
time to the events). But compare in the above, the first line of the Web
version:

    De night before Larry was stretched ...

I can live with "night" for "nite" -- dat's jus' transcription -- but the
change from "afore" to "before", if it's a misreading, suggests that the Web
text might be less than entirely trustworthy.

To cut, I finally came on, not +on+ the Web but reviewed there (in FRENCH,
for god's sake):

Andrew CARPENTER, ed., Verse in English from Eighteenth-Century Ireland,
(Cork University Press, 1998, xix + 623 pp., ISBN 1 8591 103 1).

"Ainsi, par exemple, ce poème des bas-fonds dublinois, best-seller "Newgate
style" des années 1780, "De Nite afore Larry was stretch'd", montre comment
on faisait bombance dans la cellule des condamnés à mort, pour une dernière
partie de carte sur le fond d'un cercueil retourné."

So. I ended up (at about five in the morning) ordering the bloody book from
amazon.co.uk. If I get it (there's one of those 4-6 week delay warnings)
I'll scan the poem and post it to the list.

Blup!!

Robin

(Incidentally, Larry seems to have spawned numerous imitations. There's
this from _The Sham Squire_:

A New Song to the "Tune of Larry"
(From the Dublin Evening Post of May 5, 1789.)

Oh, de night afore Edgwort was tried,
De Council dey met in despair,
Geo Jos--- was there; and beside
Was a doctor, a lord, and a player.*
Justice Sham den silence proclaim'd,
De Bullies dey all of dem harken'd;
Poor Edgewort says he will be framed;
His daylights perhaps will be darken'd,
Unless we can lend him a hand.

http://indigo.ie/~kfinlay/shamsquire/satires.htm

I'm tempted to chase Larry further, but I suspect I'd be reinventing the
wheel, so I'll wait to see what Andrew Carpenter has to say.

R2)

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