I need not treat this branch of our street literature at any great length, as specimens of the “Ballad on a Subject” will be found in many of the preceding statements of paper-workers.
It will have struck the reader that all the street lays quoted as popular have a sort of burthen or jingle at the end of each verse. I was corrected, however, by a street chaunter for speaking of this burthen as a jingle. “It’s a chorus, sir,” he said. “In a proper ballad on a subject, there’s often twelve verses, none of them under eight lines,—and there’s a four-line chorus to every verse; and, if it’s the right sort, it’ll sell the ballad.” I was told, on all hands, that it was not the words that ever “made a ballad, but the subject; and, more than the subject,—the chorus; and, far more than either,—the tune!” Indeed, many of the street-singers of ballads on a subject have as supreme a contempt for words as can be felt by any modern composer. To select a tune for a ballad, however, is a matter of deep deliberation. To adapt the ballad to a tune too common or popular is injudicious; for then, I was told, any one can sing it—boys and all. To select a more elaborate and less-known air, however appropriate, may not be pleasing to some of the members of “the school” of ballad-singers, who may feel it to be beyond their vocal powers; neither may it be relished by the critical in street song, whose approving criticism induces them to purchase as well as to admire.
The license enjoyed by the court jesters, and, in some respects, by the minstrels of old, is certainly enjoyed, undiminished, by the street-writers and singers of ballads on a subject. They are unsparing satirists, who, with a rare impartiality, lash all classes and all creeds, as well as any individual. One man, upon whose information I can rely, told me that, eleven years ago, he himself had “worked,” in town and country, 23 different songs at the same period and on the same subject—the marriage of the Queen. They all “sold,”—but the most profitable was one “as sung by Prince Albert in character.” It was to the air of the “Dusty Miller;” and “it was good,” said the ballad-man, “because we could easily dress up to the character given to Albert.” I quote a verse:
“Here I am in rags
From the land of All-dirt,
To marry England’s Queen,
And my name it is Prince Albert.”
“And what’s more, sir,” continued my informant, “not very long after the honeymoon, the Duchess of L—— drove up in her carriage to the printer’s, and bought all the songs in honour of Victoria’s wedding, and gave a sovereign for them and wouldn’t take the change. It was a duchess. Why I’m sure about it—though I can’t say whether it were the Duchess of L—— or S——; for didn’t the printer, like an honest man, when he’d stopped the price of the papers, hand over to us chaps the balance to drink, and didn’t we drink it! There can’t be a mistake about that.”
Of street ballads on political subjects, or upon themes which have interested the whole general public, I need not cite additional instances. There are, however, other subjects, which, though not regarded as of great interest by the whole body of the people are still eventful among certain classes, and for them the street author and ballad-singer cater.