Having now got my copy of Reminiscences out of the bookcase, I can say quite happily that Burstow's wife did enjoy the experience. He records

"Some few times I have sung the list of 420 songs right through, every song from beginning to end; the last time I did so I sang them to my wife, commencing on 4th April 1906, the 78th anniversary of her birthday. I sang about ten on 41 consecutive evenings, and as we sat, evening after evening, one on either side of the fire, as happy as a king and queen, I singing my best, she listening and occasionally herself singing one of the fifty songs I had taught her, the old songs seemed as fresh and as pretty as they did when I first sang them fifty, sixty, perhaps seventy years or more ago."