Charles Dibdin was born in Southampton, England, in 1745. His mother was fifty years old at the time of his birth, and he was her eighteenth child. He studied music, and in 1761 went to Loudon, where he composed ballads and tuned pianos. He also wrote at this time an opera entitled “The Shepherd’s Artifice,” which was put upon the stage at Covent Garden Theatre in 1763. He then became a professional actor and composer, and produced “The Padlock,” “The Deserter,” “The Waterman,” “The Quaker,” and other pieces, all of which were brought out at Drury Lane Theatre under Garrick’s management, and in several of which Dibdin himself took part. In 1778 he became musical manager at Covent Garden, and a few years afterwards he built the Surrey. In 1788 he published his “Musical Tour;” and in 1789 he began an entertainment called “The Whim of the Moment,” in which he was the sole author and performer. It was immensely successful, and in 1796 a small theatre, called Sans Souci, was built for it. Here he performed for nine years, retiring from the boards in 1805. In spite of his professional success, and a pension of £200 a year which was awarded him in 1805, he was poor to the end of his days. He died on July 25, 1814. Dibdin wrote “A Complete History of the Stage,” published in 1795, an autobiography, from fifty to a hundred dramatic pieces, and something like a thousand songs. His fame now rests upon his sea-songs, some of which, it is said, have been quoted with good effect in cases of mutiny. “Poor Tom Bowling” was written on the death of his eldest brother, captain of an Indiaman. A fine edition of the songs, illustrated by Cruikshank, with a memoir by Thomas Dibdin, was published in 1850.
| His form was of the manliest beauty, | |
| His heart was kind and soft, | |
| Faithful, below, he did his duty, | |
| But now he’s gone aloft. |
Charles Dibdin’s method of composition, or rather the absence of it, is illustrated in the story of his lamenting his lack of a new subject, while under the hairdresser’s hand, in a cloud of powder, in his rooms in the Strand, preparing for his night’s “entertainment.” The friend that was with him suggested various topics—but all of a sudden the jar of a ladder sounded against the lamp-iron, and Dibdin exclaimed, “The lamplighter! a good notion,”—and at once began humming and fingering on his knee. As soon as his head was dressed, he stepped to the piano, finished off both music and words, and that very night sang “Jolly Dick, the Lamplighter” at the theatre, nor could he, we are assured, on critical authority, have well made a greater hit if the song had been the deliberate work of two authors—one for the words, another for the air—and had taken weeks to finish it, and been elaborated in studious leisure, instead of the distraction of dressing-room din.
He was popular with the public, but, thanks to the close monopoly which theatrical affairs were then subject to, he could not reach that public in the ordinary way…. Dibdin had quite as ill treatment as Burns, although his follies were not so great or so gross; but he was of tougher material, and did not drink, and so lived his evil days down; while the other perished miserably in the flower of his manhood.
Dibdin’s ambition seems to have been not so much in the direction of future fame as of universal recognition during his life-time. His appears to have been the kind of nature which is spurred on better by the shout of the multitude than by the “well done” of the conscience…. Perhaps Dibdin might have been more content to work and live for posterity if the nation had only been capable of supplying him with funds for the needs of the present. Poet though he was, he had strong leanings towards the practical. If he had been asked to decide between the cabbage and the rose, he would have undoubtedly voted for the cabbage. While other composers might feel flattered by having their songs echoed through the streets on barrel organs and other mediums of musical torture, he only regretted that there could be no tangible participation in the popularity. His sea-songs had undoubtedly been a powerful influence for good, yet, with a depth of sarcasm, which he had always at command, he tells us that before 1802 the only symptom of acknowledgment he ever received was a hearty shake of the hand from Admiral Gardner, “when I gave him my vote for Westminster.”
General
These “Songs” have been the solace of sailors in long voyages, in storms, in battles; and they have been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline.
One man—a man without any great musical or nautical knowledge—has given poetic and musical utterance to the deep passion of the English nation for the sea, and done more to set up a standard type for the British sailor than any number of navy regulations. Wherever an English ship is found, beneath the tropical sun or in the ice of the poles, while an English sailor crosses the rolling deep, or Englishmen delight to speak of their country as the empress of the ocean, the name of Charles Dibdin will be known. His songs portray the sailor’s strength and weakness, his valour afloat and his joviality ashore, the warmth of his heart and the force of his hand, his fidelity to King and flag,—in short, they lay open every throb of England’s hearts of oak.
As a ballad writer, and as a composer of sea songs, Dibdin has made himself a name which will last as long as English poetry is read…. No man knew better how to please the popular taste.
The insertion of these [“Anchorsmiths”] grandly—simply, almost Homeric stanzas is due to the suggestion of Mr. W. E. Gladstone.
Dibdin’s fine “Anchorsmiths” I inserted in consequence of your praise of it some years ago. It is truly so much grander in style than his sea-songs, and so different in manner, that, except yourself, I have met with no one who knew it.
The great merit of Dibdin’s best songs, his sea-songs especially, words and music, in undeniable. His autobiography is dreary and egotistical in the extreme, and he is loose and inaccurate, whether by defect of memory or by intentional distortion of truth. His sea-songs are full of generous sentiment and manly honesty. Somehow he cared less for a practical fulfillment of the ethics that he preached so well. He invented his own tunes, for the most part spirited and melodious, and in this surpassed Henry Carey beyond all comparison. They were admirably suited to his words. He boasted truly: “My songs have been the solace of sailors in long voyages, in storms, in battle; and they have been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline.” He brought more men into the navy in war time than all the press-gangs could. Exclusive of the “entertainments sans souci,” commenced in 1797, with their 360 songs, he wrote nearly seventy dramatic pieces, and set to music production of other writers. He claimed nine hundred songs as his own, of which two hundred are repeatedly encored, ninety of them being sea-songs, and undoubtedly his master-work. He was a rapid worker. No one of his entertainments cost him more than a month; his best single songs generally half an hour, e.g. his “Sailor’s Journal.” Music and words came together.
Charles Dibdin—the author of half a hundred plays, and no less than fourteen hundred songs, to say nothing of a dozen or more novels, and a history of the stage…. In his day, his ballads and plays delighted countless thousands of his fellow countrymen; they stimulated good feelings, and were of immeasurable pleasure to our soldiers and sailors.
There is perhaps a touch of cant and also of political purpose in it [“Tom Bowling”], here and there, but “The little cherub that sits up aloft” has grown into our literature, and embedded in it and in the popular estimation is the couplet—
| “For my heart is my Poll’s, and my rhino’s my friend’s, | |
| And as for my life, ’tis the king’s.” |
| “What argufies snivelling and piping your eye? | |
| Why, what a damned fool you must be!” |
In all of these songs, whether the theme be his native land or the wind-swept seas that close it round, love is the poet’s real inspiration; love of old England and her sovereign, love of the wealth-bringing ocean, love of the good ship that sails its waves. This fundamental affection for the things of which he sings has endeared the songs of Dibdin to the heart of the British sailor; and in this lies the proof of their genuineness. His songs are simple and melodious; there is a manly ring in their word and rhythm; they have the swagger and the fearlessness of the typical tar; they have, too, the beat of his true heart, his kindly waggery, his sturdy fidelity to his country and his king. There is nothing quite like them in any other literature.
