red, in 1864, a version to suit his own country,
choosing, as it happens, not New York or Washington as the background of
the milkman's love drama, but the home of Transatlantic culture itself,
Boston. Paddington Green would, of course, mean nothing to American
ears, but Boston is happy in the possession of a Pemberton Square, which
may, for all I know, be as important to the Hub of the Universe as
Merrion Square is to Dublin, and Polly was, therefore, made comfortable
there, and, as Pretty Polly Perkins of Pemberton Square, became as
famous as, in our effete hemisphere, Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington
Green. The adaptor deserves great credit for altering as little as
possible. Beyond Polly's abode, and the necessary rhymes to mate with
Square, he did nothing, so that the song, while transplanted to America,
remained racy of the English capital. It was still the broken-hearted
milkman who sang it, and the _denouement_, which is so very
English--and, more than English, Cockney--was unaltered:

In six months she married,
That hard-hearted girl;
It was not a squire,
And it was not a nearl.
It was not a baronet,
But a shade or two wuss--
'Twas the wulgar old driver
Of a twopenny 'bus.

But the story of Polly is nothing. The merit of the song is its air, the
novelty and ingenuity of its chorus, and the praises of Polly which the
chorus embodies. The celebration of charming women is never out of date.
Some are sung about in the Mediterranean, some in Boston, and some all
the world over; others give their names to roses.

So far had I written--and published--in a weekly paper, leaving open a
loophole or two for kind and well-instructed readers to come to my aid;
and as usual (for I am very fortunate in these matters) they did so.
Before I was a month older I knew all. I knew that the author, composer,
and singer of "Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" were one and
the same: the famous Harry Clifton; and that Polly married "not the
wulgar old driver" of a twopenny 'bus, as was my mistaken belief, but
quite the reverse--that is to say, the "bandy-legged conductor" of the
same vehicle. A gentleman in Ireland was even so obliging as to send me
another ballad by Harry Clifton, on the front of which is his portrait
and on the back a list of his triumphs--and they make very startling
reading, at any rate to me, who have never been versatile. The number of
songs alone is appalling