A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    644/700 (page 614)
    A typical London ballad of the period was the famou ' Hopeful Bargain', the full title of which was: ' Thi Hopeful Bargain! Or a Fare for a Hackney Coachman giving a Comical Relation how an Ale-draper at the Sign o the Double tooth'd Rake in or near the new Palace Yard Westminster, Sold his Wife for a Shilling, and how she was sold a second time for Five Shillings to Judge; My Lord Coachman, and how her Husband receiv'd her again aftei she had lain with other Folks three Days and Nights, etc. The Tune Lilly Bullero.' The vogue of the itinerant singer reached its highest development during the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The male singers were confronted with the competition of female ballad singers, who haunted the streets of London singing obscene songs. The sale of these street songs formed a lucrative side- line of the London book trade of the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, some of them were written, for the sake of the fee paid by the publishers, by poets of merit who lived in straitened circumstances. Oliver Goldsmith wrote ballads for street singers at a shilling each, and used to go out at night in order to hear them sung. Collections of such obscene ballads include c The Lovers ', at the end of The London Bawd (British Museum Library), and ' Love's Vocal Grove, or the Bucks in High Humour, being a Choice Collection of the Most Favourite Songs of the Town'. However, the folk-song in the noblest sense was not entirely abandoned. Thus Bishop Percy wrote ' 0 Nancy' to Anne Gutteridge in 1758. The song was set to music by Thomas Carter and was sung by Vernon at Vauxhall in 1773. It is sufficient to quote the first verse of this charming song to give an idea of its quality: [614]