Unless you can write the words "Now then, boys, all together", at the
top of a ballad, it is not really a ballad at all. That may sound a
sweeping statement, but it is true.
In the present-day music-halls, although they have fallen from their
high estate, we should find a number of these songs which seem destined
for immortality. One of these is "Don't 'ave any more, Mrs. Moore."
Do you remember it?
Don't 'ave any more, Mrs. Moore!
Mrs. Moore, oh don't 'ave any more!
Too many double gins
Give the ladies double chins,
So don't 'ave any more, Mrs. Moore!
The whole of English "low life" (which is much the most exciting part of
English life) is in that lyric. It is as vivid as a Rowlandson cartoon.
How well we know Mrs. Moore! How plainly we see her ... the amiable,
coarse-mouthed, generous-hearted tippler, with her elbow on countless
counters, her damp coppers clutched in her rough hands, her eyes
staring, a little vacantly, about her. Some may think it is a sordid
picture, but I am sure that they cannot know Mrs. Moore very well if
they think that. They cannot know her bitter struggles, her silent
heroisms, nor her sardonic humour.
Lyrics such as these will, I believe, endure long after many of the most
renowned and fashionable poets of to-day are forgotten. They all have
the same quality, that they can be prefaced by that inspiring sentence,
"Now then, boys--all together!" Or to put it another way, as in the
ballad of George Barnwell,
All youths of fair England
That dwell both far and near,
Regard my story that I tell
And to my song give ear.
That may sound more dignified, but it amounts to the same thing!
VIII
But if the generation to come will learn a great deal from the few
popular ballads which we are still creating in our music-halls, how much
more shall we learn of history from these ballads, which rang through
the whole country, and were impregnated with the spirit of a whole
people! These ballads are history, and as such they should be
recognised.