The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Чарльз Диккенс

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      The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman

      In some collection of old English Ballads there is an ancient ditty which I am told bears some remote and distant resemblance to the following Epic Poem. I beg to quote the emphatic language of my estimable friend (if he will allow me to call him so), the Black Bear in Piccadilly, and to assure all to whom these presents may come, that "I am the original." This affecting legend is given in the following pages precisely as I have frequently heard it sung on Saturday nights, outside a house of general refreshment (familiarly termed a wine vaults) at Battle-bridge. The singer is a young gentleman who can scarcely have numbered nineteen summers, and who before his last visit to the treadmill, where he was erroneously incarcerated for six months as a vagrant (being unfortunately mistaken for another gentleman), had a very melodious and plaintive tone of voice, which, though it is now somewhat impaired by gruel and such a getting up stairs for so long a period, I hope shortly to find restored. I have taken down the words from his own mouth at different periods, and have been careful to preserve his pronunciation, together with the air to which he does so much justice. Of his execution of it, however, and the intense melancholy which he communicates to such passages of the song as are most susceptible of such an expression, I am unfortunately unable to convey to the reader an adequate idea, though I may hint that the effect seems to me to be in part produced by the long and mournful drawl on the last two or three words of each verse.

      I had intended to have dedicated my imperfect illustrations of this beautiful Romance to the young gentleman in question. As I cannot find, however, that he is known among his friends by any other name than "The Tripe-skewer," which I cannot but consider as a soubriquet, or nick-name; and as I feel that it would be neither respectful nor proper to address him publicly by that title, I have been compelled to forego the pleasure. If this should meet his eye, will he pardon my humble attempt to embellish with the pencil the sweet ideas to which he gives such feeling utterance? And will he believe me to remain his devoted admirer,

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK?

      P.S. – The above is not my writing, nor the notes either, nor am I on familiar terms (but quite the contrary) with the Black Bear. Nevertheless I admit the accuracy of the statement relative to the public singer whose name is unknown, and concur generally in the sentiments above expressed relative to him.

      The Loving Ballad Of Lord Bateman

I

      Lord Bateman vos a noble Lord,

      A noble Lord of high degree;

      He shipped his-self all aboard of a ship,

      Some foreign country for to see.12

II

      He sail-ed east, he sail-ed vest,

      Until he come to famed Tur-key,

      Vere he vos taken, and put to prisin,

      Until his life was quite wea-ry.

III

      All in this prisin there grew a tree,

      O! there it grew so stout and strong,

      Vere he vos chain-ed all by the middle

      Until his life vos almost gone.

IV

      This Turk3 he had one ounly darter,

      The fairest my two eyes e'er see,

      She steele the keys of her father's prisin,

      And swore Lord Bateman she would let go free.

V

      O she took him to her father's cellar,

      And guv to him the best of vine;

      And ev'ry holth she dronk unto him,

      Vos, "I vish Lord Bateman as you vos mine!"4

VI

      "O have you got houses, have you got land,

      And does Northumberland belong to thee?

      And what would you give to the fair young lady

      As out of prisin would let you go free?"

VII

      "O I've got houses, and I've got land,

      And half Northumberland belongs to me;

      And I vill give it all to the fair young lady

      As out of prisin vould let me go free."

VIII

      "O in sevin long years, I'll make a wow

      For sevin long years, and keep it strong,5

      That if you'll ved no other voman,

      O I vill v-e-ed no other man."