I find no difference in style between the ballads on a subject of to-day, and the oldest which I could obtain a sight of, which were sung in the present generation—except that these poems now begin far less frequently with what at one time was as common as an invocation to the Muse—the invitation to good Christians to attend to the singer. One on the Sloanes, however, opens in the old fashion:
“Come all good Christians and give attention,
Unto these lines I will unfold,
With heartfelt feelings to you I’ll mention,
I’m sure ’twill make your blood run cold.”
I now conclude this account of street-ballads on a subject with two verses from one on the subject of “The Glorious Fight for the Championship of England.” The celebration of these once-popular encounters is, as I have already stated, one of the points in which the modern ballad-man emulates his ancient brother minstrel:
“On the ninth day of September,
Eighteen hundred and forty five,
From London down to Nottingham
The roads were all alive;