I played Monk’s Gate while I was practicing cornetto last
week. (I think the original Bunyan words, not the bowdlerized
Episcopal hymnal version.) Then I couldn’t get it out of my
head.
Luckily, I caught a bit of “The Glen Miller Story” on TV a
couple of nights later, and I found I could replace it at will
with “The Chattanooga Choo Choo”.
In “Fie nay prithee John” it is not “drink about” but “drink a bout,” in other words, a round of drinks. And in the last line, it is not “Who cares a damn” but “Who cares a fig.” They wouldn’t have used “damn” in Purcell’s time.