The line of desolation is full two English
miles in length, and from a quarter to half a
mile in breadth.

POPULAR SONGS.

"LET me write the songs of a people, and I
care not who makes the laws." There is sound
philosophy in that saying, but I am afraid we
cannot accept it from the mouth of the popular
song-writer of the present day. The poor-law
is not a perfect enactment, but, as an
agent of amelioration, I should say that its influence
was superior to that of Slap-bang.
The Bankruptcy Act is said to be a failure,
yet, on the whole, the benefits which it confers
must be at least equal to those which society
derives from Hunkey Dorum, or the Howling
Swell. Much as we all value the Sugar
Shop, I believe the commercial treaty with
France will fairly compete with it on its own
ground. It might also be said that the navigation
laws, with all their faults, are more to be
loved and valued than Paddle Your Own
Canoe, although that popular lyric, with a
"Now, then, all together" chorus, earnestly
enjoins us to love our neighbour as ourself.
And the Revised Code, though open to objection,
might claim to be as strong a stimulus to
the progress of mankind as Jog Along, Boys,
or its popular sequel, Jog Along, Girls.

The minstrels of old, sang the glorious
deeds of heroes, the troubadours and minne-singers
warbled of the loves of fair ladies
and gallant knights, the Celtic bards kept
alive patriotism and nationality among their
countrymen with "thoughts that breathed and
words that burned, "the lisping verse-stringers
of a softer age celebrated the beauty of Phillis
and Chloe prettily enough, the sturdier ballad-makers
of the last century tuned their harps
to the roar of the sea and glorified Britannia,
Nelson, and hearts of oak. The song-writer
of the present recounts, in shambling doggrel,
the kitchen cupboard-love of the cook and the
policeman, and the taproom-courtship of the
oyster-wench and the omnibus cad.

The decline and fall of the popular song has
been sudden and rapid. Less than twenty
years ago we were still singing My Pretty Jane,
the Maids of Merry England, and Phillis is
my only Joy. We rarely hear songs of this
character sung now, and there are no new
songs of the same class to take their place.
The successor of My Pretty Jane was the
Ratcatcher's Daughter; of Phillis, Naughty
Jemima Brown. My Pretty Jane was a
foolish thing, to be sure, but if we did
press her to meet us— meet us in the willow
glen when the bloom was on the rye (for no
particular reason, at that floral season, except
that she was "shy"), she did not outrage our
feelings by taking too much to drink and
cutting away with a chap that drives an ugly
donkey-cart. Phillis was a very different young
woman from Jemima Brown. She was faithless,
it is true, like Jemima; but she was faithless
"as the winds and seas," not as a pair of
sixteen-shilling trousers, made not to sit down
in. The pretty, pleasing (though foolish)
sentimental ballad has almost entirely disappeared,
and instead of celebrating woman's
loveliness and grace, we sing of her ugliness
and disgrace, with "Now, then, all together,"
and she stabbed herself with the carving-knife,
and a right fol de riddle lol de ray. Murder
and suicide have become exceedingly comic in
these days. The carving-knife and the water-butt
are the modern dagger and bowl, and their
mortal effects are invariably celebrated in a
chorus of jubilation.

The earliest so-called negro songs, which
initiated the present comic era, were inoffensive
enough, and some of these were united to very
pretty music. Uncle Ned was a stupid old
nigger, and scarcely worthy of the attention of
the white folks; yet there was pathos in his
little history. It was truly pitiful to hear that
the old man musical had got no teeth for to eat
the oat cake, and got no eyes for to see. And
there was a touch of poetry in his fiddle hanging
up, silent for evermore, because old Uncle
Ned was dead, and

    Gone where the good niggers go.

The old Folks at Home, originating in the
streets, found an echo in many a drawing-room;
and genteel young ladies, singing in
unison, brought tears into the eyes of their
auditors with

   Way down upon the Swanee river,
   Far, far away,
   There's where my heart is turning ever,
   There's where the old folks stay.

Even old Joe, with that idiotic propensity of
his for kicking up behind and before when he
went with his old banjo to court Dinah, was a
decent sort of nigger, and might be heard of
in the best society, "without calling a blush into
the cheek of innocence;" while Sally's only
fault was that she would "twist her heel
around," and come up and down the middle
when her master's back was turned.

Managers of theatres still act upon the faith
that the lower classes like something deep and
sentimental, but the managers of the music-halls,
which are now the academies of popular music,
take an opposite view of their likings, and give
them the broadest comicalities. The popular
comic singer, who sings such songs as Slap-bang,
Costermonger Joe, The Mousetrap Man,
The Cure, &c., is better paid than many of the
artistes at the Italian Opera. He is the idol
of the audiences at the music-halls, though
in most cases he cannot sing a note, and is
utterly devoid of humour. How is it that this
noisy unartistic performer has suddenly become
such a favourite, to the utter banishment of all
appeals to the heart and sentiment?

In pursuing this inquiry, let us see what there
is in his songs to excite so much delight and
enthusiasm. One of the most popular of them,
some little time ago, was the Sugar Shop. Here
is the first verse: