The famous old ballad, “_Cold and raw_,” was greatly admired by
Queen Mary, consort of King William; and she once affronted Mr.
Purcell, by requesting to have it sung to her, he being present. The
story is as follows: The Queen, having a mind, one afternoon, to be
entertained with music, sent to Mr. Gostling, then one of the Chapel,
and afterwards subdean of St. Paul’s; to Mr. Henry Purcell, and Mrs.
Arabella Hunt, who had a very fine voice, and an admirable hand on
the lute, with a request to attend her. Mr. Gostling and Mrs. Hunt
sung several compositions of Purcell, who accompanied them on the
harpsichord. At length the queen, beginning to grow tired, asked Mrs.
Hunt, if she could not sing the old Scotch ballad, “Cold and raw?”
Mrs. Hunt answered yes, and sung it to her lute. Purcell was all the
while sitting at the harpsichord unemployed, and not a little nettled
at the queen’s preference of a vulgar ballad to his music; but, seeing
her majesty delighted with this tune, he determined that she should
hear it upon another occasion, and accordingly, in the next birth-day
song, viz. that for the year 1692, he composed an air to the words,
“_May her bright example chace vice in troops out of the land_,” the
bass whereof is the tune to Cold and Raw. It is printed in the Orpheus
Britannicus, and is note for note the same with the Scotch tune.