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Show musical antl literary eminence. And whit are the songs like? Do they show any graphic or satirical power, any command of the pathos and humor which appeal to popular tastes? One would hesitate to answer in the negative since these ditties are fonnd acceptable by those whom they are intended to delight, and yet to hear or read them is apt to produce a conviction convic-tion that the niusio hall pnblio is entertained enter-tained with the samo facility as excited Sir. Pickwick's envy in the cane ot Mr. Peter Magnus' friends. F. Anstcy iu Harper's. Popular Songs. At every musio hall from twenty ta tMrty songs, or even more, will be snug in the course of the evening, and of all these perhaps two or throe in a year will catch the popular favor, be played on barrel organs, whistled by street boys, adapted for burlesques and pantomimes, and overrun the entire country in a mar-velonsly mar-velonsly short time, until it palls upon the very villagers. Some fifteen years , ago, for examplo, it was impossible to go j anywhere in the United Kingdom with-! with-! ont hearing a certain Tommy being j vocally adjured to make room for his j uncle. It would bo curious to resusci-' resusci-' tate Tommy nnd his nncle now and gee how much success they would obtain with tho public of today. The tune was irresistibly catching, but it would probably prob-ably fall on deaf ears now. No superannuated super-annuated thing is so ntterly dead and forgotten as a once popular music hall song, compared to which Jonah's gourd was a hardy annual. Who compose these ephemeral tuneur Their names seldom or never appear, any more than do those 0f the gentlemen who write tho songs, though it is safe to con-cludo con-cludo from internal evidence in cither : case that thej are not persons of exalted i |
