THE PRESENTATION.
The month was September,
The day I remember,
(’Twas the congé of Clara Novello),
I saw troops under arms,
Dragoons and gendarmes,
Saluting sweet Fanny Pellmello.
At St Peter’s last chime
A chorus sublime
(By-the-by, from Rossini’s Otello),
Was sung by Soprani,
In homage to Fanny,
The light footed Fanny Pellmello.
As she rush’d on their gaze,
The Swiss-guard in amaze,
Thought they might as well stand a Martello;
All their muskets they dropp’d,
On their knees they all popp’d,
To worship sweet Fanny Pellmello.
To describe the danseuse,
Is too much for my muse;
But if ever I fight a “duello,”
Or quarrel at mess,
It will be to possess
Such a jewel as Fanny Pellmello.
On her brow a tiara,
Like the lady’s in Lara,
Or a portrait of thine, Biandello;
With a twist and a twirl,
All diamond and pearl,
In bounded sweet Fanny Pellmello.
All the men in the cowls,
Were startled like owls,
When the sunbeam first darts in their dell, O;
As she flash’d on their eyes,
All were dumb with surprise—
All moon-struck with Fanny Pellmello.
As she waltzed through the hall,
None heard a foot fall,
All the chamberlains stood in a spell, O;
While, silent as snow,
She revolved on her toe,
A la Psyche—sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Whom she knelt to within
I can’t say, for my sin;
Those are matters on which I don’t dwell, O;
But I know that a Queen
Was nigh bursting with spleen
At the diamonds of Fanny Pellmello.
Were I King, were I Kaiser,
I’d have perish’d to please her,
Or dared against all to rebel, O;
I’d have barter’d a throne
To be bone of thy bone,
Too exquisite Fanny Pellmello.
If Paris had seen
Her pas seul on the green,
When the goddesses came to his cell, O,
Forgetting the skies,
He’d have handed the prize
To all-conquering Fanny Pellmello.
Achilles of Greece
Though famed for caprice,
Would have left Greek and Trojan in bello,
Cut country and king,
And gone off on the wing
To his island with Fanny Pellmello.
Alexander the Great,
Though not over sedate,
And a lover of more than I’ll tell, O,
Would have learn’d to despise
All his Persians’ black eyes,
And been faithful to Fanny Pellmello.
Marc Antony’s self
Would have laid on the shelf
His Egyptian so merry and mellow;
Left his five hundred doxies,
And found all their proxies
In one, charming Fanny Pellmello.
The renown’d Julius Cæsar,
With nose like a razor,
And skull smooth and bright as a shell, O,
Would his sword have laid down,
Or pilfer’d a crown,
At thy bidding, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
His nephew Augustus,
Not famous for justice,
(Unless when the gout made him bellow,)
His nose would have curl’d
At the pomps of the world,
For a cottage with Fanny Pellmello.
The Emperor Tiberius,
(A rascal nefarious,)
Though all things on earth he would sell, O,
Would have bid Rome adieu,
To the Alps flown with you,
And play’d shepherd to Fanny Pellmello.
That Bluebeard, young Nero,
(Not much of a hero,
For a knave earth has scarce seen his fellow,)
Though his wife he might smother,
Or hang up his mother,
Would have worshipp’d sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Nay, Alaric the Goth,
Though he well might be loath
His travelling baggage to swell, O,
Would have built you a carriage,—
Perhaps offer’d marriage,—
And march’d off with Fanny Pellmello.
Fat Leo the Pope,
In tiara and cope,
Who the magic of beauty knew well, O,
Would have craved your permission
For your portrait, by Titian,
As Venus—sweet Fanny Pellmello.
The Sultan Mahmood
Who the Spahis subdued,
And mow’d them like corn-fields so yellow,
Would have sold his Haram,
And made his salām
At thy footstool, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Napoleon le Grand
Would have sued for thy hand,
Before from his high horse he fell, O;
He’d have thought Josephine
Was not fit to be seen,
By thy beauties, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
——But the Thames, like the world, is full of changes. As the steamer ran close in under the right shore, I observed a small creek, as overgrown with sedge, as silent and as lonely as if it had been hid in a corner of Hudson’s Bay. It was once called Julius Cæsar’s bath, from the tradition, that when marching at the head of the Tenth Legion, on a visit to Cleopatra, then resident in Kent! he ordered his whole brigade to wash the dust from their visages preparatory to appearing before her majesty and her maids of honour. But this was the age of romance. An unwashed age followed, and the classical name gave way to the exigencies of things. The creek was called the “Condemned Hole,” and was made the place for impounding vessels caught in the act of smuggling, which were there secured, like other malefactors, in chains. It may not unnaturally be concluded, that the spot was unpopular to the tribe of gallant fellows, who had only followed the example of Greek, Saxon, Dane, and Norman; and who saw the beloved companions of many a daring day and joyous night (for if the sailor loves his ship, the smuggler adores her) laid up under sentence of firewood. By that curious propensity, which makes the fox so often fix his burrow beside the kennel, the surrounding shore was the favourite residence of the smuggler; and many a broad-shouldered hero, with a visage bronzed by the tropic sun, and a heart that would face a lion, a fire-ship, or any thing but his wife in a rage, was seen there taking his sulky rounds, and biting his thumb (the approved style of insult in those days) at the customhouse officers, who kept their uneasy watch on board. With some the ruling passion was so strong, that they insisted on being buried as near as possible to the spot, and a little churchyard was thence established, full of epitaphs of departed gallantry and desperate adventure—a sort of Buccaneer Valhalla, with occasional sculptures and effigies of the sleepers below.
Among those the name of Jack Bradwell lived longest. The others exemplified what Horace said of the injustice of fame, they “wanted a poet” to immortalize them; but Jack took that office on himself, and gave the world an esquisse of his career, in the following rough specimen of the Deptford muse of 1632:—