Of Ancient and Modern Street Ballad Minstrelsy.

Mr. Strutt, in his “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” shows, as do other authorities, that in the reigns subsequent to the Norman Conquest the minstrels “were permitted to perform in the rich monasteries, and in the mansions of the nobility, which they frequently visited in large parties, and especially upon occasions of festivity. They entered the castles without the least ceremony, rarely waiting for any previous invitation, and there exhibited their performances for the entertainment of the lord of the mansion and his guests. They were, it seems, admitted without any difficulty, and handsomely rewarded for the exertion of their talents.”

Of the truth of this statement all contemporary history is a corroboration. The minstrels then, indeed, constituted the theatre, the opera, and the concert of the powerful and wealthy. They were decried by some of the clergy of that day,--as are popular performers and opera singers (occasionally) by some zealous divine in our own era. John of Salisbury stigmatizes minstrels as “ministers of the devil.”

“The large gratuities collected by these artists,” the same antiquarian writer further says, “not only occasioned great numbers to join their fraternity, but also induced many idle and dissipated persons to assume the characters of minstrels, to the disgrace of the profession. These evils became at last so notorious, that in the reign of King Edward II. it was thought necessary to restrain them by a public edict, which sufficiently explains the nature of the grievance. It states, that many indolent persons, under the colour of minstrelsy, intruded themselves into the residences of the wealthy, where they had both meat and drink, but were not contented without the addition of large gifts from the householder. To restrain this abuse, the mandate ordains, that no person should resort to the houses of prelates, earls, or barons, to eat, or to drink, who was not a professed minstrel; nor more than three or four minstrels of honour at most in one day (meaning, I presume, the king’s minstrels of honour and those retained by the nobility), except they came by invitation from the lord of the house.”

The themes of the minstrels were the triumphs, victories, pageants, and great events of the day; commingled with the praise, or the satire of individuals, as the humour of the patron or of the audience might be gratified. It is stated that Longchamp, the favourite and justiciary of Richard Cœur-de-lion, not only engaged poets to make songs and poems in his, Bishop Longchamp’s, praise, but the best singers and minstrels to sing them in the public streets!

In the ninth year of the reign of Edward IV. another royal edict was issued, as little favourable to the minstrels as the one I have given an account of; and those functionaries seem to have gradually fallen in the estimation of the public, and to have been contemned by the law, down to the statute of Elizabeth, already alluded to, subjecting them to the same treatment as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. A writer of the period (1589) represents the (still-styled) minstrels, singing “ballads and small popular musickes” for the amusement of boys and others “that passe by them in the streete.” It is related also that their “matters were for the most part stories of old time; as the tale of Sir Topas, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for the recreation of the common people at Christmas dinners and bride ales, and in tavernes and alehouses, and such other places of base resort.”

These “stories of old time” are now valuable as affording illustrations of ancient manners, and have been not unfertile as subjects of antiquarian annotation.

Under the head of the “Norman Minstrels,” Mr. Strutt says: “It is very certain that the poet, the songster, and the musician were frequently united in the same person.”

From this historical sketch it appears evident that the ballad-singer and seller of to-day is the sole descendant, or remains, of the minstrel of old, as regards the business of the streets; he is, indeed, the minstrel having lost caste, and being driven to play cheap.

The themes of the minstrels were wars, and victories, and revolutions; so of the modern man of street ballads. If the minstrel celebrated with harp and voice the unhorsings, the broken bones, the deaths, the dust, the blood, and all the glory and circumstance of a tournament,--so does the ballad-seller, with voice and fiddle, glorify the feelings, the broken bones, the blood, the deaths, and all the glory and circumstance of a prize-fight. The minstrel did not scoff at the madness which prevailed in the lists, nor does the ballad-singer at the brutality which rules in the ring. The minstrels had their dirges for departed greatness; the ballad-singer, like old Allan Bane, also “pours his wailing o’er the dead”--for are there not the street “helegies” on all departed greatness? In the bestowal of flattery or even of praise the modern minstrel is far less liberal than was his prototype; but the laudation was, in the good old times, very often “paid for” by the person whom it was sung to honour. Were the same measure applied to the ballad-singer and writer of to-day, there can be no reason to doubt that it would be attended with the same result. In his satire the modern has somewhat of an advantage over his predecessor. The minstrel not rarely received a “largesse” to satirize some one obnoxious to a rival, or to a disappointed man. The ballad-singer (or chaunter, for these remarks apply with equal force to both of these street-professionals), is seldom hired to abuse. I was told, indeed, by a clever chaunter, that he had been sent lately by a strange gentleman to sing a song--which he and his mate (a patterer) happened at the time to be working--in front of a neighbouring house. The song was on the rogueries of the turf; and the “move” had a doubly advantageous effect. “One gentleman, you see, sir, gave us 1s. to go and sing; and afore we’d well finished the chorus, somebody sent us from the house another 1s. to go away agin.” I believe this to be the only way in which the satire of a ballad-singer is rewarded, otherwise than by sale to his usual class of customers in the streets or the public-houses. The ancient professors of street minstrelsy unquestionably played and sung satirical lays, depending for their remuneration on the liberality of their out-of-door audience; so is it precisely with the modern. The minstrel played both singly and with his fellows; the ballad-singer “works” both alone (but not frequently) and with his “mates” or his “school.”

In the persons of some of these modern street professionals, as I have shown and shall further show, are united the functions of “the poet, the songster, and the musician.” So in the days of yore. There are now female ballad-singers; there were female minstrels, or glee-women. The lays which were poured forth in our streets and taverns some centuries back, either for the regalement of a miscellaneous assemblage, or of a select few, were sometimes of an immoral tendency. Such, it cannot be denied, is the case in our more enlightened days at our Cyder-cellars, Coal-holes, Penny Gaffs, and such like places. Rarely, however, are such things sung in the streets of London; but sometimes at country fairs and races.

In one respect the analogy between the two ages of these promoters of street enjoyment does not hold. The minstrel’s garb was distinctive. It was not always the short laced tunic, tight trousers, and russet boots, with a well plumed cap,--which seems to be the modern notion of this tuneful itinerant. The king’s and queen’s minstrels wore the royal livery, but so altered as to have removed from its appearance what might seem menial. The minstrels of the great barons also assumed their patron’s liveries, with the like qualification. A minstrel of the highest class might wear “a fayre gowne of cloth of gold,” or a military dress, or a “tawnie coat,” or a foreign costume, or even an ecclesiastical garb,--and some of them went so far as to shave their crowns, the better to resemble monks. Of course they were imitated by their inferiors. The minstrel, then, wore a particular dress; the ballad-singer of the present day wears no particular dress. During the terrors of the reign of Henry VIII., and after the Reformation, a large body of the minstrels fell into meanness of attire; and in that respect the modern ballad-singer is analogous.

It must be borne in mind that I have all along spoken--except when the description is necessarily general--of the street, or itinerant, minstrel of old. The highest professors of the art were poets and composers, men often of genius, learning, and gravity, and were no more to be ranked with the mass of those I have been describing than is Alfred Tennyson with any Smithfield scribbler and bawler of some Newgate “Copy of Verses.”

How long “Sir Topas” and the other “old stories” continued to be sung in the streets there are no means of ascertaining. But there are old songs, as I ascertained from an intelligent and experienced street-singer, still occasionally heard in the open air, but more in the country than the metropolis. Among those still heard, however rarely, are the Earl of Dorset’s song, written on the night before a naval engagement with the Dutch, in 1665:

“To all you ladies now on land, We men at sea indite.”

I give the titles of the others, not chronologically, but as they occurred to my informant’s recollection--“A Cobbler there was, and he liv’d in a Stall”--Parnell’s song of “My Days have been so wond’rous Free,” now sung in the streets to the tune of “Gramachree.” A song (of which I could not procure a copy, but my informant had lately heard it in the street) about the Cock-lane Ghost--

“Now ponder well, you parents dear The words which I shall write; A doleful story you shall hear, In time brought forth to light.”

the “Children in the Wood” and “Chevy-chase.” Concerning this old ditty one man said to me: “Yes, sir, I’ve sung it at odd times and not long ago in the north of England, and I’ve been asked whereabouts Chevy-chase lay, but I never learned.”

“In Scarlet towne, where I was borne, There was a faire maid dwellin’, Made every youth crye, Well-awaye! Her name was Barbara Allen.”

“Barbara Allen’s selling yet,” I was told. “Gilderoy was a Bonnie Boy,” is another song yet sung occasionally in the streets.

“The ballad,” says a writer on the subject, “may be considered as the native species of poetry of this country. It very exactly answers the idea formerly given of original poetry, being the rude uncultivated verse in which the popular tale of the time was recorded. As our ancestors partook of the fierce warlike character of the northern nations, the subjects of their poetry would chiefly consist of the martial exploits of their heroes, and the military events of national history, deeply tinctured with that passion for the marvellous, and that superstitious credulity, which always attend a state of ignorance and barbarism. Many of the ancient ballads have been transmitted to the present times, and in them the character of the nation displays itself in striking colours.”

The “Ballads on a Subject,” of which I shall proceed to treat, are certainly “the rude uncultivated verse in which the popular tale of the times is recorded,” and what may be the character of the nation as displayed in them I leave to the reader’s judgment.

OF STREET “BALLADS ON A SUBJECT.”

There is a class of ballads which may with perfect propriety be called street ballads, as they are written by street authors for street singing (or chaunting) and street sale. These effusions, however, are known in the trade by a title appropriate enough--“Ballads on a Subject.” The most successful workers in this branch of the profession, are the men I have already described among the patterers and chaunters.

The “Ballads on a Subject” are always on a political, criminal, or exciting public event, or one that has interested the public, and the celerity with which one of them is written, and then sung in the streets, is in the spirit of “these railroad times.” After any great event, “a ballad on the subject” is often enough written, printed, and sung in the street, in little more than an hour. Such was the case with a song “in honour,” it was announced, “of Lord John Russell’s resignation.” Of course there is no time for either the correction of the rhymes or of the press; but this is regarded as of little consequence--while an early “start” with a new topic is of great consequence, I am assured; “yes, indeed, both for the sake of meals and rents.” If, however, the songs were ever so carefully revised, their sale would not be greater.

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.

I first give a specimen of a ballad on a Theatrical Subject. The best I find, in a large collection of these street effusions, is entitled “Jenny Lind and Poet B.” After describing how Mr. Bunn “flew to Sweden” and engaged Miss Lind, the poet proceeds,--the tune being “Lucy Long”:

“After Jenny sign’d the paper, She repented what she’d done, And said she must have been a cake, To be tempted by A. Bunn. The English tongue she must decline, It was such awkward stuff, And we find ’mongst our darling dames, That one tongue’s quite enough.

CHORUS.

So take your time Miss Jenny, Oh, take your time Miss Lind, You’re only to raise your voice, John Bull, will raise the wind.

Says Alfred in the public eye, My name you shan’t degrade, So birds that can and won’t sing Why in course they must be made This put Miss Jenny’s pipe out, Says Bunn your tricks I see, Altho’ you are a Nightingale, You shan’t play larks with me.

The Poet said he’d seek the law, No chance away he’d throw; Says Jenny if you think I’ll come, You’ll find it is no go! When a bird-catcher named ‘Lummy’ With independence big, Pounced down upon the Nightingale, And with her hopp’d the twig!”

I am inclined to think--though I know it to be an unusual case--that in this theatrical ballad the street poet was what is tenderly called a “plagiarist.” I was assured by a chaunter that it was written by a street author,--but probably the chaunter was himself in error or forgetfulness.

Next, there is the Ballad on a Civic Subject. In the old times the Lord Mayor had his laureate. This writer, known as “poet to the City of London,” eulogised all lord mayors, and glorified all civic pageants. That of the 9th November, especially, “lived in Settle’s numbers, one day more,”--but Elkanah Settle was the last of such scribes. After his death, the city eschewed a poet. The office has now descended to the street bard, who annually celebrates the great ceremony. I cite two stanzas and the chorus from the latest of these civic Odes:

“Now Farncombe’s out and Musgrove’s in, And grand is his position, Because he will be made a king, At the Hyde Park Exhibition; A feast he’ll order at Guildhall, For hypocrites and sinners, And he has sent Jack Forester to Rome, To invite the Pope to dinner!

A day like this we never saw, The truth I am confessing, Batty’s astonishing menagerie, Is in the great procession; There’s lions, tigers, bears and wolves, To please each smiling feature, And elephants in harness drawing Drury Lane Theatre!

CHORUS.

“It is not as it used to be, Cut on so gay and thrifty, The funny Lord Mayor’s Show to see, In eighteen hundred and fifty.”

There is, beside the descriptions of ballads above cited, the Ballad Local. One of these is headed the “Queer Doings in Leather-lane,” and is on a subject concerning which street-sellers generally express themselves strongly--Sunday trading. The endeavour to stop street trading (generally) in Leather-lane, with its injurious results to the shopkeepers, has been already mentioned. The ballad on this local subject presents a personality now, happily, almost confined to the street writers:

“A rummy saintly lot is there, A domineering crew, A Butcher, and a Baker, And an Undertaker too, Besides a cove who deals in wood, And makes his bundles small, And looks as black on Sunday As the Undertaker’s pall.

CHORUS.

You must not buy, you must not sell, Oh! is it not a shame? It is a shocking place to dwell, About sweet Leather Lane.

The Butcher does not like to hear His neighbours holloa, buy! Although he on the Sunday Sells a little on the sly; And the Coffin Maker struts along Just like the great Lord Mayor, To bury folks on Sundays, Instead of going to prayers.”

There are yet three themes of these street songs, of which, though they have been alluded to, no specimens have been given. I now supply them. The first is the election ballad. I quote two stanzas from “Middlesex and Victory! or, Grosvenor and Osborne for ever!”

“Now Osborne is the man To struggle for your rights, He will vote against the Bishops, You know, both day and night, He will strive to crush the Poor Law Bill, And that with all his might, And he will never give his vote To part a man from his wife.

CHORUS.

Then cheer Osborne and Lord Grosvenor, Cheer them with three times three, For they beat the soldier, Tommy Wood, And gained the victory.

I have not forgot Lord Grosvenor, Who nobly stood the test, For the electors of great Middlesex I know he’ll do his best; He will pull old Nosey o’er the coals, And lay him on his back, And he swears that little Bob’s head He will shove into a rat trap.”

Then come the “elegies.” Of three of these I cite the opening stanza. That on the “Death of Queen Adelaide” has for an illustration a figure of Britannia leaning on her shield, with the “Muse of History,” (as I presume from her attributes,) at Britannia’s feet. In the distance is the setting sun:

“Old England may weep, her bright hopes are fled, The friend of the poor is no more; For Adelaide now is numbered with the dead, And her loss we shall sadly deplore. For though noble her birth, and high was her station The poor of this nation will miss her, For their wants she relieved without ostentation, But now she is gone, God bless her! God bless her! God bless her! But now she is gone, God bless her!”

The elegy on the “Death of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, Bart. M.P.,” is set off with a very fair portrait of that statesman.

“Britannia! Britannia! what makes thee complain, O why so in sorrow relenting, Old England is lost, we are borne down in pain, And the nation in grief is lamenting, That excellent man--the pride of the land, Whom every virtue possessed him, Is gone to that Home, from whence no one returns, Our dear friend, Sir Robert, God rest him.”

The verses which bewail the “Death of H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge,” and which are adorned with the same illustration as those upon Queen Adelaide, begin

“Oh! death, thou art severe, and never seems contented, Prince Adolphus Frederick is summoned away, The death of Royal Cambridge in sorrow lamented, Like the good Sir Robert Peel, he no longer could stay; His virtues were good, and noble was his actions, His presence at all places caused much attraction, Britannia for her loss is driven to distraction, Royal Cambridge, we’ll behold thee no more!”

The third class of street-ballads relates to “fires.” The one I quote, “On the Awful Fire at B. Caunt’s, in St. Martin’s-lane,” is preceded by an engraving of a lady and a cavalier, the lady pointing to a column surmounted by an urn. I again give the first stanza:

“I will unfold a tale of sorrow, List, you tender parents dear, It will thrill each breast with horror, When the dreadful tale you hear. Early on last Wednesday morning, A raging fire as we may see, Did occur, most sad and awful, Between the hours of two and three.”

In a subsequent stanza are four lines, not without some rough pathos, and adapted to move the feelings of a street audience. The writer is alluding to the grief of the parents who had lost two children by a terrible death:

“No more their smiles they’ll be beholding, No more their pretty faces see, No more to their bosoms will they fold them, Oh! what must their feelings be.”

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; Oh! such a sight was never seen, Believe me it is so, Tens of thousands went to see the fight, With Caunt and Bendigo.

And near to Newport Pagnell, Those men did strip so fine, Ben Caunt stood six feet two and a half, And Bendigo five foot nine; Ben Caunt, a giant did appear, And made the claret flow, And he seemed fully determined Soon to conquer Bendigo.

CHORUS.

With their hit away and slash away, So manfully you see, Ben Caunt has lost and Bendigo Has gained the victory.”