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Sing Old Rose

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Sing Old Rose and burn the bellows. “Old Rose” was the title of a song now unknown; thus, Izaak Walton (1590–1683) says, “Let’s sing Old Rose.” Burn the bellows is said to be a schoolboy’s perversion of burn libellos. At breaking-up time the boys might say, “Let’s sing Old Rose [a popular song], and burn our schoolbooks” (libellos). This does not accord with the words of the well-known catch, which evidently means “throw aside all implements of work.”

“Now weʹre met like jovial fellows,

Let us do as wise men tell us,

Sing Old Rose and burn the bellows.”

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Sin-eaters
Sincere
Sindhu
Sindon
Sine Die (Latin)
Sine quā Non
Sinecure [si-ne-kure]
Sinews of War
Sing a Song o Sixpence
Sing my Music, and not Yours
Sing Old Rose
Sing Out
Sing-su-hay
Singapores
Singing Apple
Singing-Bread
Singing Chambermaids
Singing Tree
Singing in Tribulation
Single-Speech Hamilton
Sinister (Latin, on the left hand)