“Lord Bateman was a noble lord,
A noble lord of high degree;
He shipped himself on board a ship,
He longed strange countries for to see.”
Cruikshank collectors will remember that the artist chose this ballad for illustrating, and small as is the book, a copy of the original 1839 edition sold for £5 15s. at Sotherby’s last year. Of course Cruikshank’s version is comic, and the history of it is that he sang the ballad at a dinner of the Antiquarian society, to the air, and with the cockney pronunciation he had heard given to it by a street ballad singer. Dickens was present at the dinner, and offered to supply the illustrative notes (which are exceedingly humorous), Cruikshank etched the plates, and almost innumerable editions of the little book have been published; the most recent having been issued a few years since by Messrs. Bell and Daldy, London.
The New Ballad of Lord Bateman.
Lord Bateman wos a noble Lord,
Wot held Free Trade pure fiddlededee;
So he up and he moved in the House of Peers,
In favour of Sweet Reciprocitee!