Williams’s Popular Song Hampstead Is the Place to Ruralise Hampstead Is the Place to Ruralise, All on a Summer Day (1861) is a comic hymn dedicated to the pleasures of Hampstead Heath. The euphemism “ruralizing,” like gypsying, had been in use since the the1820s but faded by the end of the Nineteenth Century.
Williams’ song was long associated with Miss Annie Adams, a popular London singer of the period who called herself the Queen of seriocomic vocalists. In 1871, the music was still popular and remarked in St. James Magazine (1871). The essay “A Stroll Round Hampstead and Highgate,” celebrating “The loveliness of the scenery of Hampstead Heath, the beauty of its view, the freshness and salubrity of its air, drew thousands to its breezy brow long before London could count its population by millions.”
Williams’ lyrics are doggerel:
Oh! Hampstead is the place to ruralise, ruralise,
Extramuralize, Hampstead is the place to ruralize
On a summer’s day.
There you can take a ramble away from London fogs
Across the heath you scramble being mindful of the frogs
Oh! London is the place to ruralize.
Featured Image: The sheet music for Hampstead Is the Place to Ruralise is illustrated by R.J. Hamerton. Notice the frog in a teapot, and in the left midground, the famous Hampstead Heath donkeys.
See http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/vicpopmus/h/015hzz00001773ku00011001.html; St James Magazine, volume 7 (28), http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA414&lpg=PA414&dq=hampstead+is+the+place+to+ruralize&sig=6ytmpqylwRXSQGMYqCgCM7yC_N0&ei=JaD7U9iaGJHgsATHvoC4CQ&id=nbwRAAAAYAAJ&ots=kVaQs0iBZf&output=text