![Henry Carey](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Henry_Carey.jpg)
Henry Carey (c. 26 August 1687 – 5 October 1743) was an English poet, dramatist and songwriter. He is remembered as an anti-
Walpolean satirist and also as a patriot. Several of his melodies continue to be sung today, and he was widely praised in the generation after his death. Because he worked in anonymity, selling his own compositions to others to pass off as their own, contemporary scholarship can only be certain of some of his poetry, and a great deal of the music he composed was written for theatrical incidental music. However, under his own name and hand, he was a prolific songwriter and balladeer, and he wrote the lyrics for almost all of these songs. Further, he wrote numerous operas and plays. His life is illustrative of the professional author in the early 18th century. Without inheritance or title or governmental position, he wrote for all of the remunerative venues, and yet he also kept his own political point of view and was able to score significant points against the ministry of the day. Further, he was one of the leading lights of the new
"Patriotic" movement in drama.
Early life
Henry Carey was born in London and was the illegitimate son of
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, (11 November 1633 – 5 April 1695), was an English statesman, writer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660, and in the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668.
Backgr ...
. Carey did not make the claim himself, but he did use "Savile" as the name of three of his male children, and these corresponded to the births of Halifax's own three sons. Furthermore, he dedicated all of his major works to Halifax (Gillespie 127). His biography in ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' also stated that Carey received a "generous annuity" from the Savile family, but that seems less likely and remains unconfirmed. The fact that, even when his most popular plays were on the boards, Carey would write for pay argues against such an annuity.
Aside from rumor, it is impossible to be sure of Carey's parents. It is possible that a Henry and a Mary Carey, both school teachers, were his parents. Indeed, his first profession, according to
Richard Hawkins
Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (or Hawkyns) (c. 1562 – 17 April 1622) was a 17th-century English seaman, explorer and privateer. He was the son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins.
Biography
He was from his earlier days familiar with ships and the s ...
, was as a music teacher in a
boarding school for the middle gentry, a position he held while also working as an author, so these two Careys are the most likely candidates for at least his surrogate, if not his biological, parents.
Early musical and literary work
Scholars have trouble identifying Carey's first works, because he was probably writing anonymously.
According to
Laetitia Pilkington
Laetitia Pilkington (born Laetitia van Lewen; ''c.'' 1709 – 29 July 1750) was an Anglo-Irish poet. She is known for her ''Memoirs'' which document much of what is known about Jonathan Swift.
Life
Early years
Laetitia was born of two dist ...
, friend of
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...
's and other
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
wits, Carey worked as a "
subaltern
Subaltern may refer to:
*Subaltern (postcolonialism), colonial populations who are outside the hierarchy of power
* Subaltern (military), a primarily British and Commonwealth military term for a junior officer
* Subalternation, going from a univer ...
" to
James Worsdale
James Worsdale (''c.'' 1692 – 10 June 1767) was an Irish and English portrait painter, actor, literary fraud, and libertine whose lively conversation, wit, and boldness allowed him to move among the highest circles of literary life. His ski ...
later in his life, in 1734, when he was best paid and most famous.
Since he was writing for pay when he had theatrical successes, it seems reasonable that he had been hiring his pen for quite some time.
In the 18th century, he did hack work for the periodicals of the day. His first accredited work was a weekly publication of a serialized romance fictions entitled ''
Records of Love'' in January through March 1710.
This work was aimed at a female readership and was written with a clear expectation of an intelligent, educated, and populous set of readers. He also appears as a singer of Italian and English entre-acte songs at
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...
around 1710 (Gillespie 127). His first poetry publication came in 1713, the year of the height of the Tory ministry under
Queen Anne with ''
Poems on Several Occasions.''
In 1714, Carey had a job as a psalmist at
Lincoln's Inn church and also at
Drury Lane. He performed there with his music students. The Tory ministry fell with the death of Anne, and Robert Walpole's
Whigs were on the rise. The leaders of the former government,
Robert Harley and
Henry St. John, were accused of
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
over the coming months, and, while St. John fled, Harley was imprisoned in the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...
. In 1715, Carey wrote his first play, an
afterpiece An afterpiece is a short, usually humorous one-act playlet or musical work following the main attraction, the full-length play, and concluding the theatrical evening.p24 "The Chambers Dictionary"Edinburgh, Chambers,2003 This short comedy, farce, ...
entitled ''
The Contrivances.'' On 13 July 1717, Carey lost both of his posts, at Drury Lane and at Lincoln's Inn, for a singular political statement: Harley had just been freed from the Tower and had attended Lincoln's Inn Church, and Carey set
Psalm 124 to a jaunty, celebratory tune and sang it. The Psalm concerns the
Exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
of the Israelites, announcing that
:"If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us:
:Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:
:Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul."
It concludes with "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped."
![Hogarth-rehearsal (2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Hogarth-rehearsal_%282%29.png)
Even though Carey lost those two positions, he was soon back at Drury Lane, and he married Elizabeth Pearks in September. He produced his second play, ''
Hanging and Marriage'', in 1722. The theatrical seasons of 1723 and 1724 were dominated by
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
and
spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French ''spectacle'', itself a reflection of the ...
plays in London (inducing a young
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...
to satirize the abandonment of drama for puppets), and Carey provided the music to some of these productions. In 1723, he wrote the music for ''
Harlequin
Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the '' zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian '' commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditional ...
Dr.
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...
us'' (text, such as it was, by
Barton Booth
Barton Booth (168210 May 1733) was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.
Early life
Booth was the son of The Hon and Very Revd Dr Robert Booth, Dean of Bristol, by his first wife and distant cousin An ...
) at Drury Lane. From 1723 to 1733, Carey was the "unofficial composer in residence" for Drury Lane, and he wrote and performed much of the music between acts, preludes, and epilogue music, as well as the music called for by dances and other entertainments in the plays (Gillespie 127).
Henry Carey never ceased to be a composer nor to work as a singer and musician. Even as he began to have greater success as a poet and playwright, he continued to work in music. He worked in a theatre that was associated with the Whig party.
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling ...
,
Robert Wilks
Robert Wilks (''c.'' 1665 – 27 September 1732) was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of th ...
, and Barton Booth were patronized first by
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...
and his circle and then by
Robert Walpole and his circle, and yet Carey appears to have been an unambiguous supporter of the Tory ministry of
Henry St. John and Harley and the literary circle of
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
. When, therefore, Pope satirized the theatrical vacuity of the pantomime stage in ''
The Dunciad
''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bri ...
'', he was aiming not at the musicians and composers, but rather at the replacement of drama with spectacle.
Namby Pamby and anti-Walpolean satire
His poem, ''
Namby Pamby
Namby-pamby is a term for affected, weak, and maudlin speech/verse. It originates from ''Namby Pamby'' (1725) by Henry Carey.
Carey wrote his poem as a satire of Ambrose Philips and published it in his ''Poems on Several Occasions''. Its first ...
'' (1725), satirized
Ambrose Philips
Ambrose Philips (167418 June 1749) was an English poet and politician. He feuded with other poets of his time, resulting in Henry Carey bestowing the nickname " Namby-Pamby" upon him, which came to mean affected, weak, and maudlin speech or ver ...
, a frequent and famous target of
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's wrath. Philips had written a series of
ode
An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...
s to "all persons", from
Robert Walpole to the mother in the nursery, and the latter provided the occasion for Carey to exaggerate. Philips had employed a 2.5' iambic line, and Carey devastatingly claimed that the half-line matched Philips's halfwitted conception. The poem was so successful that Carey himself began to be known as "Namby Pamby Carey" (while Philips became known as "Namby Pamby"), and the poem even came to be used as children's literature. Furthermore, the term "namby pamby" came into widespread usage to describe any nonsensical frippery. "
Sally in Our Alley", one of Carey's songs, was also exceptionally successful, and it has been performed by many singers through to the modern era.
Carey was, after ''Namby Pamby'', a well-known figure among those opposed to Robert Walpole, and the poem had been praised by Alexander Pope (as "Sally in our Alley" had been by
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...
). Carey was an admirer and subscriber to the operas of
Handel, but, like
John Gay and Alexander Pope, thought that the operatic stars were absurd. Therefore, he began to satirize opera in 1726 and in that year he produced ''Faustina, or, the Roman Songstress'', a satire of
Faustina Bordoni
Faustina Bordoni (30 March 1697 – 4 November 1781) was an Italian mezzo-soprano.
In Hamburg, Germany, the Johann Adolph Hasse Museum is dedicated to her husband and partly to Bordoni.
Early career
She was born in Venice and brought up unde ...
. Faustina was at that time in a hissing fight with
Francesca Cuzzoni and actually came to blows the next year during a performance of Handel. In the next year, he wrote ''Mocking is Catching'' to satirize
Senesino, the Italian
castrati opera star.
In 1730, he added music and introduced
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
s for his previous play, ''Hanging and Marriage'', and put the play on as ''The Clown's Stratagem''. He used the basic text of the play again, with new music, for ''Betty, or, The Country Bumpkins'' in 1732. These two characteristics—a love of opera and frustration at its abuses and a love of patriotism and frustration at Walpole's policies—would show up in all of Carey's professional works.
In the same year, Carey may have been the first to sing "
God Save the King
"God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, b ...
" at a
Patriot Whig
The Patriot Whigs, later the Patriot Party, were a group within the British Whig Party, Whig Party in Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1725 to 1803. The group was formed in opposition to the government of Robert Walpole in the Britis ...
meeting, and there is some reason to attribute the song to him. The Bath Chronicle of 13 August 1795 recounted:
The earliest published version of God Save the King (for two voices) seems to date from the early 1740s.
Carey as dramatic satirist
As a playwright, Carey was a significant figure in the re-emergence of
satirical drama in the 1730s. After the success of ''Namby Pamby,'' Carey was favored by the older generation of
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
wits and the
Scriblerus Club
The Scriblerus Club was an informal association of authors, based in London, that came together in the early 18th century. They were prominent figures in the Augustan Age of English letters. The nucleus of the club included the satirists Jonathan ...
. After
John Gay's invention of the
ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its dist ...
with ''
The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...
'', Carey turned to writing musical
burlesques. He wrote a great deal of music and some librettos for other playwrights during this period.
In 1732,
J. F. Lampe,
Thomas Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song " Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of '' The Beggar's Opera'', wh ...
,
J. C. Smith and Henry Carey formed the
English Opera project. Their goal was to revive serious opera in English. Together, they formed the English Opera Company, and Carey wrote two librettos, for ''Amelia'' (set by Lampe and acted at the Little Theatre at
The Haymarket
Haymarket is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, London. It runs from Piccadilly Circus in the north to Pall Mall at the southern end. Located on the street are the Theatre Royal, Her Majesty's Theatre, New Zealand H ...
(an opposition playhouse favored by Henry Fielding)) and ''Teraminta'' (set by Smith and performed at
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...
). ''Amelia'' was a great popular success, but the opera company failed, and the project came to nought (Gillespie 128).
Having satirized the foreignness of opera, in 1734 Carey turned his attention to the poorly written, mass-produced tragedy. ''
Chrononhotonthologos'' was a parody of bombastic
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
and, particularly, the very hack-written
spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French ''spectacle'', itself a reflection of the ...
plays he had collaborated on at Drury Lane. The play was daring, for it was a satire of
Caroline of Ansbach and
George II of the United Kingdom
, house = Hanover
, religion = Protestant
, father = George I of Great Britain
, mother = Sophia Dorothea of Celle
, birth_date = 30 October / 9 November 1683
, birth_place = Herrenhausen Palace,Cannon. or Leine ...
. The Queen was attacked for her alliance with Robert Walpole and her general caprice. It also had a generous amount of music by Carey. If contemporary allies understood the criticisms inherent in the play, it was also possible to see it as a
burlesque with
nonsense verse
Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature.
Limericks are probably th ...
. He followed that up with the ballad
farce of ''The Honest Yorkshire-Man.''
Although Carey's attempt to revive serious, patriotic English opera did not work, his attempts at
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...
and satire in opera did. He had previously satirized the exoticism and emptiness of the English public's love of
prima donna
In opera or commedia dell'arte, a prima donna (; Italian for "first lady"; plural: ''prime donne'') is the leading female singer in the company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given.
''Prime donne'' often had grand off-stage per ...
singers and castrati, but in 1737, he adapted ''The
Dragon of Wantley
The Dragon of Wantley is a legend of a dragon-slaying by a knight on Wharncliffe Crags in South Yorkshire, recounted in a comic broadside ballad of 1685. It was later included in Thomas Percy's 1767 '' Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'', enjoyi ...
'' from a
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
folk
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
into a full mock-opera. This literary adaptation was a step beyond adapting literary plays into ballads (as
John Gay had done), for it began with a folk ballad and transformed it into opera. The play, with music by
John Frederick Lampe
John Frederick Lampe (born Johann Friedrich Lampe; probably 1703 – 25 July 1751) was a musician and composer.
Life
Lampe was born in Saxony, Germany but came to England in 1724 and played the bassoon in opera houses. In 1730, he was hired by ...
, punctured the vacuous operatic conventions and pointed a satirical barb at Robert Walpole and his taxation policies. The play was a huge success. Its initial run was sixty-nine performances in the first season, which exceeded even ''The Beggar's Opera.'' The play debuted at the Haymarket, where its coded attack on Walpole would have been clear, but its long run occurred after it moved to Covent Garden, which had a much greater capacity for staging. Part of its satire of opera was that it had all of the words sung, including the
recitative
Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat ...
s and
da capo
Da capo (, also , ) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). It is often abbreviated as D.C. The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is a ...
aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
s (Gillespie 128). The play itself is very brief on the page, as it relied extensively on absurd theatrics, dances, and other non-textual entertainments. ''The Musical Entertainer'' from 1739 contains engravings showing how the staging was performed (Gillespie 128).
From 1737 to 1740, he wrote ''The Musical Century in one Hundred English Ballads'' in two volumes. Although Carey complained that his enemies were calling him "Ballad-maker," the work was praised later by
Charles Burney, and in the 19th century opinion of Carey's clear, simple, and memorable ballad tunes went even higher. Also in 1738, he helped found the Fund for Decayed Musicians, and he produced ''Margery, or, a Worse Plague than the Dragon,'' a sequel to ''The Dragon of Wantley.''
He had another popular success in 1739 with ''
Nancy, or, The Parting Lovers'', a patriotic play about a sailor leaving his beloved to fight against the Spanish. As with other works, Carey's point was primarily patriotic. Patriotic plays at the time were often demurrals of official policy and England's foreign entanglements. ''Nancy'' was set as well as written by Carey, and its main characters are a sailor, Nancy, and a Press Gang officer. The play broke new ground in explicitly treating a contemporary matter of social concern in song (Gillespie 128).
Death
Carey's son, Charles, died in 1743, and Carey hanged himself at his home in London later that year.
[Grimaldi (Boz edition), p. 94] He was buried in St James Churchyard,
Clerkenwell.
While the anonymous account in ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' says that Carey had an annuity, he left a pregnant second wife (Sarah, whom he married between 1729 and 1733) and three dependent children, and both Hawkins and ''The London Stage'' say that he was despondent over financial difficulties. Grief over the death of his son is another possible explanation of his suicide, and Suzanne Aspden speculates that Carey suffered from
paranoia
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy co ...
, while others have suspected that he had depression or other maladies. His daughter Anne became an actress and bore an illegitimate son, Edmund Carey, who later was known as the actor
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuo ...
.
Literary significance
Henry Carey's work has been tarred with allegations of triviality since his own day. He had an extraordinary gift with melody and wordplay, and later authors, such as
Edward Lear, would cite Carey as a predecessor for his tongue twisters and nonsense verse in ''Namby Pamby'' and ''
Chrononhotonthologos''. At the same time, Carey's productions were noted in his own day for their political acuity and bravery (if not foolhardiness). He was willing to offend and suffer the consequences of his convictions, but he made his political statements in a diverting and apparently frivolous manner, thereby allowing his friends to respond to his politics and his enemies to dismiss his levity. In the
Macaulay-dominated view of literary history of the early 20th-century, Carey was represented as a balladeer whose fundamental moroseness was proven by his shameful suicide, and his plays, now devoid of topicality, were set as broad entertainments.
Musicologists
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
have recognized, however, the subtle gifts necessary for Carey's music, and theater historians are beginning to recognize the context of his plays. He was the most prolific English song composer of 1715–1740, and he wrote his own lyrics to all but twelve of his two hundred and fifty songs (Gillespie 128). He was responsible for linking the vocal style of
Henry Purcell to the later style of Arne by combining popular English folks song and tavern song with Italian flourishes.
References and sources
;References
;Sources
*Aspden, Suzanne. "Henry Carey," in Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. ''
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
.'' vol. 10, 80–81. London:
OUP
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2004.
"Boz" (Ed.) (Charles Dickens), ''Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi'' from
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated)
*Gillespie, Norman. "Henry Carey," in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.'' vol. 15, 127–128.
*
*
External links
Henry Careyat th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
*
*
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*
Free scores Mutopia Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carey, Henry
English dramatists and playwrights
English classical composers
English Baroque composers
1687 births
1743 deaths
English male dramatists and playwrights
18th-century classical composers
18th-century British male musicians
English male poets
English male classical composers
Suicides by hanging in England
Suicides in London