Taglioni Coat, The

DESCRIPTION: Singer left his vulgar cronies behind when he bought a Taglioni coat. His fortunes changed when the coat led him to a wealthy lady, marriage and privilege. Clothes make the man.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1856 (broadside, Harding B 14(168))
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer used to be "shabby, low and mean" with vulgar cronies, but has put that behind him. Now, wearing a Taglioni coat, he is "known in all fashionable quarters" and admired by "London's fairest daughters" One day, ice skating, he falls into the Serpentine, soaking his coat. He is invited, by a lady with "lots of money" to go home with her, change his clothes and dry his coat. While drying his coat before her fire he proposes marriage, she accepts, they marry, and, among his advantages he gains "a flunkey, too, to curl my hair, And brush my Taglioni." Moral: to marry well "don't sport a Blouse, or Mackintosh, But try a Taglioni"
KEYWORDS: courting marriage clothes humorous servant
FOUND IN: Ireland
Roud #3569
RECORDINGS:
Martin Reidy, "Tangaloni" (on IRClare01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 14(168), "Taglioni Coat" ("I once was shabby, low, and mean"), W. Jackson and Son (Birmingham), 1842-1855
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Taglioni" (line pattern and some text) and references there
cf. "Umbrella Courtship" (tune, per broadside Bodleian Harding B 14(168))
NOTES [53 words]: Broadside Harding B 14(168) is the basis for the description.
"ta-glio-ni \tal'yone\ n -s [after Filippo Taglioni 1871 Ital. ballet master]: an overcoat worn in the early 19th century." (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1976)); Filippo Taglioni (1777-1871). - BS
File: RcTagCoa

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