My next few entries are going to focus on a group of itinerant hawkers who originated in the Lucca commune in Italy. I’m going to begin with a taster, a poem written by someone identified only as “Upton” and published in The Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth Volume III, London, 1826:

O, YE who can feel for the offspring of grief,
Give ear to an alien, that sues for relief,
From the cravings of hunger and outcast defend,
Bereft of a parent, relation or friend:
Pity, pity a stranger, debarred of all joy,
A destitute, wandering Italian Boy.

Seduced from a land to the sciences dear,
A poor distressed foreigner crawls about here;
His hope and dependence for lodging and bread,
The image, “fine image,” he bears on his head:
Pity, pity a stranger, debarred of all joy,
A destitute, wandering Italian Boy.

“What matters,” he cries, “all the grandeur I see?
The world is a desart and winter to me;
To scorn and reproach, I am doomed to appear,
No shield, no protector to succour me here.
Pity, pity a stranger, debarred of all joy,
A destitute, wandering Italian Boy.”

Ye Britons, with freedom for ages renowned,
With beauty and unrivalled, and valour-deeds crowned,
Give ear to a foreigner’s sorrowful strain,
And snatch him from misery, insult, and pain.
Pity, pity a stranger, debarred of all joy,
A destitute, wandering Italian Boy.

The Italian Boys sold “fine images”, figurines, miniatures, which they carried on planks of wood, balanced on their heads, hence my excitement!

So far I’ve not found anything about the writer, Upton, but the Italian Boys were apparently familiar enough not to need much explanation.

More follows…