The hysteria aroused when the great castrato, Senesino, Francesco Bernardi (1680-1750) left London in 1730 is satirised in this songsheet. The great castrati were feted like rock stars in the early 18th century when women fainted or became hysterical with admiration during their performances. Many wore several miniature portraits of their heroes, like fans wearing the badges of their favourite group today. Not everyone succumbed, however. As early as 1702, in Tunbridge Walks at Drury Lane, a character exclaims ‘And pray what are your Town Diversions? To hear a parcel of Italian eunuchs like so many cats, squawl.'

The lyrics of the song include the lady lamenting Senesino as her: 'warbler celestial, sweet darling of fame.... a shadow of something, a sex without name', and bidding farewell to Farinelli and Cuzzoni, other stellar Italian opera singers of the day, and to the opera and the ball - because her darling is gone. In the engraving Senesino is seen at the docks about to take a boat from England while two servants carry a stretcher labelled ‘Ready Money’, containing the huge sums he earned for his performances. Italian singers earned more in London than anywhere else in Europe. Senesino built a fine house in Italy and inscribed over the door ‘twas the folly of the English had laid the foundation of it’. The huge success of the castrati set the fashion in London for opera sung in Italian by foreign stars.