What a change has taken place in public feeling with regard to decency may be judged by the way in which Addison speaks of D'Urfey in "The Guardian," 1713, No. 29. "A judicious author, some years since, published a collection of sonnets, which he very successfully called "Laugh and be Fat; or, Pills to purge Melancholy." I can not sufficiently admire the facetious title of these volumes, and must censure the world of ingratitude, while they are so negligent in rewarding the jocose labours of my friend, Mr. D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this treatise, and to whose numerous productions so many rural squires in the remotest parts of the island are obliged for the dignity and state which corpulency gives them." And again, in No. 67, "I must heartily recommend to all young ladies, my disciples, the case of my old friend, who has often made their grand-mothers merry, and whose sonnets have perhaps lulled to sleep many a present toast, when she lay in her cradle." Why—D'Urfey's Pills must now-a-days be kept under lock and key. The fun so commended by the pious and grave Addison is filth of the most revolting description. And yet the grand-mothers of the ladies of his day, according to him, were wont to sing them over the cradles of their grand-children!
So when a "Collection of Old Ballads" was published 1723-5, the Editor, after giving a series of historical and serious pieces, in a later volume apologises to the ladies for their gravity, and for their special delectation furnishes an appendix of songs that are simply dirty.
A good many of the ditties in favour with our rural song-men, are, it must be admitted, of the D'Urfey type; and what is more some of the very worst are sung to the daintiest early melodies. Two courses lay open to us. One that adopted Dr. Barrett and Mr. Kidson to print the words exactly as given on the broadsides, with asterisks for the undesirable stanzas. But this would simply have killed the songs. No one would care to warble what was fragmentary. On the other hand, there is that adopted by the Scotch and Irish collectors, which consists in re-writing or modifying where objectionable or common-place. This has been the course we have pursued. It seemed a pity to consign the lovely old melodies to the antiquary's library, by publishing them with words which were fatal to the success of the songs in the drawing room or the concert hall. We resolved where the old words were good, or tolerable, to retain them. Where bad, to re-write, adhering as closely as possible to the original. Where the songs were mere broadside ballads, we have had no scruple in doing this, for we give reference to the press-mark in the British Museum, where the original text may be found. But the broadside itself is often a debased form of a fine early ballad. The broadside publishers were wont to pay a shilling to any ballad mongers who could furnish them with a new ditty. These men were destitute of the poetic faculty and illiterate, and they contented themselves with taking old ballads and recomposing them, so as to give to them a semblance of novelty, sufficient to qualify their authors to claim the usual fee. Here are some lines by one of the fraternity:
"I'm Billy Nuts wot always cuts
A dash through all the town, sir,
With lit'rary men, my clever pen
In grammar gains renown, sir,
In song, and catch, and ditty.
And then to each, with dying speech
I do excite their pity.
So all agree to welcome me,
With drum and fife and whiols, (sic for viols)
A cause my name stands fast in fame,
The Bard of Seven Dials."
(B.M., 11,621, K. 4)
Our object was not to furnish a volume for consultation by the musical antiquary alone, but to resuscitate, and to popularise the traditional music of the English people. As, however, to the antiquary everything is important, exactly as obtained, uncleansed from rust and unpolished, I have deposited a copy of the songs and ballads with their music exactly as taken down, for reference, in the Municipal Free Library, Plymouth.
The Rev. H.F. Sheppard, who worked with me for twelve years in rescuing these old songs, and in bringing them before the public, is now no more. A new edition has been called for, and in this some exclusions and some additions have been made. We do not think that the pieces we have removed are not good, but that we are able to supply their places with others that are better. Mr. Sheppard entertained a very strong objection to arranging any song he had not himself "pricked down" from the lips of the singers, and as Mr. Bussell had noted down hundreds as well, these, for the most part, had to be laid on one side. Mr. Sheppard was, doubtless, right in his assertion, that unless he had himself heard the song sung, he could not catch its special character, and so render it justly.
Acting on the advice of Mr. Cecil Sharp, of the Conservatoire, Hampstead, who has kindly undertaken the musical editorship of this edition, I have introduced several interesting ballads and songs that, for the reason above given, were excluded from the first. Mr. F. Kidson has kindly afforded us information relative to such songs as he has come across in Yorkshire.
In conclusion I give a few particulars relative to the Rev. H.F. Sheppard, my fellow-worker, and Mr. D. Radford, the instigator of the collection, both of whom have passed away.
Henry Fleetwood Sheppard was a graduate of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and had been appointed Travelling Batchelor to the University. Through the whole of his clerical career he was closely associated with sacred music, especially with Plain-song, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer. As precentor of the Doncaster Choral Union from 1864 to 1884, he became the pioneer of improved church music in that part of Yorkshire. In the year 1868 he was presented to the Rectory of Thurnscoe, which at that time was an agricultural village numbering about 180 inhabitants, where he remained until 1898, when he resigned his living on account of his advancing years which precluded his coping satisfactorily with the population swelling to 3,366 souls, owing to the opening of coal mines in the parish. In 1888, as already intimated, he was associated along with myself in the collection of Devon and Cornish folk songs.
When he resigned the incumbency of Thurnscoe, he retired to Oxford, where, in his declining years, he might, at his leisure, dip into those store houses of classical and musical literature in which his soul delighted.