[Allan Cunningham, Scottish poet and author.] Signed Autograph Manuscript of the words to his ‘The Mariners Song’ (‘A wet sheet and a flowing sea’).

See Cunningham’s entry in the Oxford DNB. Neatly written out in his distinctive hand. The present holograph gives the words to one of his most popular songs (an American version substitutes ‘Columbia’ for ‘Old England’). It was first published in the London Magazine in August 1822, and by 1834 was well-enough known to be discussed - and dismissed as ‘Puling nonsense’ - in ‘Sailors and Saints, by the Author of the Naval Sketch Book [i.e. William Nugent Glascock]’ (1834). 1p, 4to, on gilt-edged leaf of wove paper extracted from an album. Titled ‘The Mariners Song’ and signed at end ‘Allan Cunningham’. Three numbered eight-line stanzas, the first beginning: ‘A wet sheet and a flowing sea / A wind that follows fast / And fills the white and rustling sail / And bends the gallant mast / And bends the gallant mast my boys / While like the eagle free / Away the goodship [sic] flies and leaves / Old England on the lee.’