Thomas Billington (arr.)
(1754 - ?1832)

To Fanny fair
(S.A.T.T.B. + reduction)
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Billington issued two sets of "glees selected from the Scotch songs" in the late 1780s, to satisfy two contemporary enthusiasms: that for mixed sex social music, and that for all things North-British. The current arrangement comes from the second set.

These glees were selected from a repertoire of well-known Scottish songs that had been anthologised in the previous seventy years. Verses that are not underlaid were not included by Billington, and have been imported from external sources.
Lyrics: Allan Ramsay

To Fanny fair could I impart
The cause of all my woe, O?
That beauty which has won my heart,
The cause of all my woe, O.
Unskilled in th'art of womankind
Without design she charms, O;
How can those sparkling eyes be blind,
Which every bosom warms, O?

She knows her pow'r is all deceit,
The conscious blushes shows, O,
Those blushes to the eye more sweet
Than the op'ning budding rose, O:
Yet the delicious fragrant rose,
That charms the sense so much, O,
Upon a thorny briar grows,
And wounds with ev'ry touch, O.

At first when I beheld the fair,
With raptures I was blest, O;
But as I would approach more near
At once I lost my rest, O;
Th'enchanting sight, the sweet surprise,
Prepare me for my doom, O;
One cruel look from those bright eyes
Will lay me in my tomb, O.