Thomas John Dibdin

thumb|O, it's a snug little island!A right little, tight little island. Thomas John Dibdin (21 March 1771 – 16 September 1841) was an English dramatist and songwriter. He was the natural son of Charles Dibdin. Quotes Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,If ever I live upon dry land,The spot I should hit on wou'd be little Britain!Says Freedom, "Why that's my own island!"  O, it's a snug little island!  A right little, tight little island,  Search the globe round, none can be found  So happy as this little island. "The Snug Little Island", st. 1. The British Raft (c. 1797). Joseph Woodfall Ebsworth, DNB, vol. 15 (1888) p. 10:—"At Canterbury [Dibdin] wrote The British Raft, ridiculing the threatened French invasion, and its one song, "The Snug Little Island", attained astonishing popularity. It was first sung by "Jew" Davis at Sadler's Wells, on Easter Monday, 1797, while Dibdin was acting at Maidstone, where he himself sang it before Lord Romney, and it gained him the friendship of the Duke of Leeds." Line 6 quoted in Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, b. 1, ch. 6 (January 1856) Then a very great war man, call'd Billy the Norman,Cried "D--n it, I never lik'd my land." "The Snug Little Island", st. 3 The Dons came to plunder the island;But, snug in the hive, the Queen was alive,And "buzz" was the word in the island. "The Snug Little Island", st. 5 Longing while living for laurel and bays,Under this willow a poor poet 'lays';With little to censure, and less to praise,He wrote twelve dozen and three score plays:He finish'd his 'Life', and he went his ways. Epitaph for himself, written in the Ad Libitum Club. DNB, vol. 15 (1888) p. 11 External links Author:Thomas John Dibdin Category:Playwrights from England Category:Songwriters from England Category:1771 births Category:1841 deaths