PREUX CHEVALIER.
SIR,—The amazing popularity of the Costermonger Songs seems to me a significant phenomenon. While no humane person would deny to the itinerant vendor of comestibles that sympathy which is accorded to the joys and sorrows of his more refined fellow-creatures, it is impossible to view without alarm the hold which his loose and ungrammatical diction is obtaining in the most cultured salons of to-day. Anxious to minimise the danger, yet loth to check a sentiment of fraternity so creditable to our common humanity, I have devised a plan by which Mr. CHEVALIER's songs may he rendered in such-wise that while all their deep humanity is preserved, their English is so elevated as to be innocuous to the nicest sensibility. Permit me to give, just as a sample, my treatment of that very popular ballad, known, rubesco referens, as "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road." Not being a singer, I have adopted Mr. CLIFFORD HARRISON's charming plan of speaking through the music of the song, and this is how I render the chorus:—
"'How is it with you?' was the universal exclamation of the residents in the vicinity.
"'With whom, WILLIAM, have you made an appointment?'
"'Have you, WILLIAM, purchased all the house-property in this thoroughfare?'
"Were my risible faculties exercised?—you ask me. Nay. Indeed I was actually apprehensive of a fatal issue.
"So striking was the effect produced upon those in the ancient Cantian highway."
This, Sir, not only gives the sense, but gives it, I venture to claim, in a form fit for the apprehension of the most refined. Judging, too, by the reception it met with at our recent Penny Readings, I am convinced that Mr. CHEVALIER's peculiar humour is thoroughly preserved, for, indeed, many of the audience laughed till I became positively concerned for their safety.
Yours faithfully,
ROBERT BOWDLER SPALDING.