*There are undated cheap broadside copies, not illustrated, in the
British Museum.
Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, in his ‘Life of Cruikshank,’ tells us that the artist sang this ‘old English ballad’ at a dinner where Dickens and Thackeray were present. Mr. Thackeray remarked: ‘I should like to print that ballad with illustrations,’ but Cruikshank ‘warned him off,’ as he intended to do the thing himself. Dickens furnished the learned notes. This account of what occurred was given by Mr. Walter Hamilton, but Mr. Sala furnished another version. The ‘authorship of the ballad,’ Mr. Sala justly observed, ‘is involved in mystery.’ Cruikshank picked it up from the recitation of a minstrel outside a pot-house. In Mr. Sala’s opinion, Mr. Thackeray ‘revised and settled the words, and made them fit for publication.’ Nor did he confine himself to the mere critical work; he added, in Mr. Sala’s opinion, that admired passage about ‘The young bride’s mother, who never before was heard to speak so free,’ also contributing ‘The Proud Young Porter,’ Jeames. Now, in fact, both the interpellation of the bride’s mamma, and the person and characteristics of the proud young porter, are of unknown antiquity, and are not due to Mr. Thackeray—a scholar too conscientious to ‘decorate’ an ancient text. Bishop Percy did such things, and Scott is not beyond suspicion; but Mr. Thackeray, like Joseph Ritson, preferred the authentic voice of tradition. Thus, in the text of the Biographical Edition, he does not imitate the Cockney twang, phonetically rendered in the version of Cruikshank. The second verse, for example, runs thus:
Cruikshank:
He sail-ed east, he sail-ed vest,
Until he came to famed Tur-key,
Vere he vos taken and put to prisin,
Until his life was quite wea-ry.
Thackeray:
He sailed East, and he sailed West,
Until he came to proud Turkey,
Where he was taken and put to prison,
Until his life was almost weary.
There are discrepancies in the arrangement of the verses, and a most important various reading.
Cruikshank:
Now sevin long years is gone and past,
And fourteen days vell known to me;
She packed up all her gay clouthing,
And swore Lord Bateman she would go see.
To this verse, in Cruikshank’s book, a note (not by Cruikshank) is added: