Interlude II

Summary

Interlude II, ‘Lord Viscount Maidstone’s Address’, pursues Chapter 2’s themes of localised community formation and articulation through close analysis of a single election ballad of 1852, set to a popular political tune of the late eighteenth century, ‘Bow, Wow, Wow’. I situate the song within the political and spatial context of the Westminster election, and demonstrate its suitability as a satirical form based on both the tune’s associations and its innate melopoetic properties. In contrasting the Liberal party’s continued use of such songs with the Tory preference for more modern campaign media, I apply the chronological contentions of the previous chapter to this mid-century case study, demonstrating the continued effectiveness, within a spatially contained neighbourhood, of this early modern form of political expression.