On Delia Stung by a Bee
Performed by Melissa Winders.
Recorded June 4, 2025 in New Haven, Connecticut.
Performed with keyboard. Song restored by singer (origin: 1743, The Gentleman's Magazine).
"As far as I know no one else has recorded this song. It's a setting of an extempore verse by John, Lord Hervey (1696-1743). (The text can be found in Bloomington Lilly Library Delany MS 1, item 9, but I haven't seen it in person and it doesn't seem to be digitized.) I suspect Hervey's verse had been circulating for years as epigrammatic verse and may have been familiar to readers of The Gentleman's Magazine by the time it was set to music there. Variations on the poem continue to appear in 19th century anthologies of light verse and amusing anecdotes. Btw '1733' in the Gentleman's Magazine is a typo for 1743—the musical setting was printed a few months after Hervey's death."
