sorrow, melancholy, martial ardour, and deep
religious feeling; or, by a discordant note, it
may possibly express fear or anger. But music
cannot convey the idea of indecency, spite,
malice, jealousy, hatred, falsehood, revenge, or
any of the mean and wicked passions. All
music, in fact, is sacred. It is only when
vulgar, silly, or indecent writers of verse
associate tunes to their compositions, that music
becomes linked in the mind with unworthy ideas.
Music, in the case last mentioned, is in the
pitiable plight of a Venus Aphrodite, dressed
against her will in the dirty rags and foul
garments of the street virago, or the harridan
of the gutter. Of late years the love of music
has very greatly increased among all classes
of the English people; though the blessing
has been attended with some serious
drawbacks. Among the chief of these has been a
vast increase of so-called comic songs of the
lowest order, which has operated very injuriously
upon the taste and morals of the multitude.
Before proceeding further with the subject, let
the writer state at once that he is no enemy of
public amusements. He loves to see people
enjoy themselves. He likes fun, provided it be
funny. He likes humour, provided it be
humorous; and he highly enjoys wit, provided he
can have it unadulterated with obscenity or
profanity. But he hates vulgarity and the
habitual use of slang, and does not think
that the language of thieves, or even of
costermongers, is worthy of imitation. He
prefers the society of gentlemen to that of
"cads," and thinks that the crowning grace
of a beautiful woman—without which all
other charms and accomplishments are of no
account—is modesty; not simply of thought
and dress, but of action and demeanour. There
is no reason among any of these loves and
hatreds, why he or any one else should not
approve of music and song for the million, and
of the Music Halls that have within the last few
years sprung up in all the populous towns and
cities in England. The Music Hall is the opera
house of the poor, and if the poor, differing in
this respect from the rich, enjoy their songs,
their ballets, and their acrobatic gymnastics
much better with an accompaniment of beer
and tobacco than without, there is no weighty
reason why any sensible person should object
to their recreation on that account: provided
always that they keep within the bounds of
sobriety and decorum. That the beer and the
tobacco have a vulgarising and demoralising
tendency is obvious enough; but, on the other
hand, it must be admitted that the hard-working
multitudes of our busy age have too little
opportunity and means of recreation to justify
the rigid censor in objecting to a public taste
which he is powerless to elevate, provided that
the bad taste leads to no offence against good
morals.

In the days when there were no Music Halls
in London, and when urban and suburban
taverns and public houses were the resorts of
tradesmen, clerks, mechanics and others who
required amusement after their day's work,
the comic muse was largely represented. There
never was a time in England when gaiety and
lightness of heart did not find expression in
music. The songs, sentimental or comic, grave
or gay, that pleased the English people before
the days of Queen Elizabeth, have for the most
part perished, but from the time of Shakespeare
to our own, we know exactly the style of songs
that amused our forefathers. Their comic songs
were sometimes too free and loose for a refined
taste, and sometimes they were silly and affected;
but in the main there was a hearty humour and
joyous wit about them, which removed them
from the imputation of coarseness. Even up to
so late a period as 1830, when Vauxhall Gardens,
White Conduit House, and other places that
were the direct predecessors of the Music Halls
were open, the songs that were sung were not
wholly adapted to the taste of "fast" men and
women, or of "cads" and costermongers.
Sentiment was not utterly banished, and the
comic songs, though not very elevated as specimens
of English composition or graceful as
specimens of English wit, had a certain spice
of fun and humour about them, that amused
without disgusting the hearer. A collection of
such songs published in 1830 in three volumes,
and entitled the "Apollo," shows the wit that
pleased the fancy, and the pathos that touched
the hearts of the men and women of that day.
The publishers took credit to themselves, not
only for having carefully excluded from their
pages "everything that could disgust the eye
of modesty, or shock the ear of refinement,"
but for having "rejected every composition,
however popular, that was nothing but flimsy
rhyme and jingling nonsense." It must be
admitted, however, that this excellent rule of
selection was not rigidly adhered to, and that a
large amount of very flimsy nonsense, indeed,
found its way into the pages of the Apollo.
Edmund Waller, in the days of Charles the
Second, thought it hard that he should be
called upon "to swear to the truth of a song,"
and it would be equally hard if the writer of a
song purporting to be comic, were not allowed
the privilege of harmless nonsense—for
nonsense may often be witty as well as funny; and
convey innocent pleasure, where good sense in
a repulsive shape might fail to convey either
pleasure or instruction. But nonsense is not
to be confounded with inanity or stupidity, and
especially with that lowest and vilest form of
both, which borrows the language of pickpockets
and cadgers, and knows no difference between
mirth and blackguardism. And in this respect
the comic nonsense of our fathers and
grandfathers stands in very favourable contrast with the
Music-Hall nonsense that has sprung into favour
in the year 1868. In the not very remote days
when William the Fourth was King, sentiment
was not considered, as of necessity, to be
unmanly, unwomanly, or silly; and the expression
of honest love and disinterested friendship was
not held to be inconsistent, either with delicacy
or good sense. The songs of Dibdin, Burns, and