"The Hundreds" as given is very much a stage tune: the slow pace feels like a semi-recitative, and the variations/elaborations are surely for musicians in the orchestra pit, presumably as a finale or ad lib between stanzas.

"Larry" has to be sung slowly as well if it is to make any sense at all. Possibly gestures were required to give hints of the meaning of the cant words - which had already appeared for the enlightenment of the public in various cant glossaries and dictionaries over many decades.

"Cant songs" were a minor genre of the late 17th and early 18th century.