" CLARENCE SONGS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR.'
SIR,—Y011 have a question in your paper, what songs, and whether any of any value, were written upon Prince WILLIAX, our present Sovereign. Can it have escaped you, that the very popular song and tune of Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill' had reference to the sup- posed partiality of that Prince for a lass of Richmond ? I have heard who she was, but now forget. I think it was a damsel of quality. I remember, when I was a schoolboy at Christ's Hospital, about eight-and-forty years since, having had my hearing stunned with the burthen (which alone I retain) of some ballad in praise and augury of the Princely Midshipman He's royal, he's noble, he's chosen by me.*. Britain's Isle to protect, and reign Lord of the Sea I'
and my old ears yet ring with it.
Allusions to the same personage were at that time rife in innumerable ballads, under the notion of a sweet William; but the ballads are obliterated. The song of Sweet William Taylor, walking with his lady gay '—from the identity of names, I suppose—usually followed the Neptunian Song. The late To SHERIDAN bears away the credit of this. But was it possible he could have been the author of it in 1782 or 1783? Perhaps he made it his own by communicating a deeper tinge of vulgarity to it, exchanging William' for 'Billy.' I think the rogue
snugged it in as his own, hoping it was a forgotten ditty.
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