HENRY

See also:

• HENRY CAREY (d. 1743)
• CAREY, HENRY CHARLES (1793-1879)
• CAREY, WILLIAM (1761-1834)

CAREY (d. 1743)  , English poet and musician, reputed to be an illegitimate son of George Savile, marquess of Halifax, was born towards the end of the 17th century . His mother is supposed to have been a schoolmistress, and Carey himself taught music at various schools . He owed his knowledge of music to Olaus Linnert, and later he studied with Roseingrave and Geminiani . He wrote the words and the music of The Contrivances; or More Ways than One, a farce produced at Drury Lane in 1715 . His Hanging and Marriage; or The Dead Man's Wedding was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1722 . Chrononhotonthologos (1734), described as " The most Tragical Tragedy that ever was tragedized by any Company of Tragedians," was a successful burlesque of the bombast of the contemporary stage . The best of his other pieces were A Wonder; or the Honest Yorkshireman (1735), a ballad opera, and the Dragon of Wantley (1737), a burlesque opera, the music of which was by J . F . Lampe . He was the author of Namby-Pamby, a once famous parody of Ambrose Philips's verses to the infant daughter of the earl of Carteret . Carey is best remembered by his songs . " Sally in our Alley " (printed in his Musical Century) was a sketch drawn after following a shoemaker's 'prentice and his sweetheart on a holiday .

The

present tune set to these words, however, is not the one written by Carey, but is borrowed from an earlier song, " The Country Lasse," which is printed in The Merry Musician (vol. iii., c . 1716) . It has been claimed for him that he was the author of " God save the King " (see NATIONAL ANTHEMS) . He died in London on the 4th of October 1743, and it was asserted, without justification, that he had committed suicide . Edmund Kean, the tragedian, was one of his great-grandchildren . The completest edition of his poems is Poems on Several Occasions (1729) . His dramatic works were published by subscription in 1743 .