' Eighteen hundred and war-time '
H. E. Piggott
Singer, Frederick Harvey
Today Mr. Piggott will deal with some of the naval ballads inspired by the French wars of the eighteenth century. They are not, properly speaking, ' sea songs ' at all, though some of them made their way afloat. Two of the most famous were theatre songs: the words of ' Heart of Oak' "were written by Garrick for his Drury Lane pantomime Harlequin's Invasion in 1759, with music by Boyce, and ' The Saucy Arethusa ' was first sung in a musical farce, Lock and Key, at Covent Garden in 1786.