Note 229 — V CHELSEA GROUP

According to a statement of Burney’s (note in Croker’s ed. of Boswell’s Johnson, p. 143, anno “1763”), the salt-box song was sung by Beard accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing master, while Skeggs played on the broomstick as bassoon. Croker assigns the composition, and apparently the first performance, of the Ode to 1769, and states that the first edition (which he himself had seen) of it bears the date 1749, a date which he considered to be a misprint for 1769. But the date 1769 is, as some later writers have seen, clearly erroneous, and the composition—and possibly the first performance at Ranelagh—must be assigned to 1759. The published edition of the Ode, in the British Museum, is dated (May) 1763, and the Ode was undoubtedly performed at Ranelagh on 10 June of that year (1763). (See Annual Register; Lloyd’s Evening Post, 8–16 June, 1763.)