Charles Dickens and MusicLightwood, James T. (James Thomas)
General
Charles Dickens and Music
Lightwood, James T. (James Thomas)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Knowledge -- Music; Music and literature
It will be remembered that Mr. Bucket (_B.H._) gained a wife by
a similar display of vocal talent. After singing 'Believe me,
if all those endearing young charms,' he informs his friend
Mrs. Bagnet that this ballad was
his most powerful ally in moving the heart of
Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach
the altar. Mr. Bucket's own words are 'to come up to
the scratch.'
Mrs. Micawber's 'Little Taffline' was a song in Storace's
ballad opera _Three and the Deuce_, words by Prince Hoare. It
will be interesting to see what the song which helped to mould
Micawber's fate was like.
LITTLE TAFFLINE.
[Figure 5]
Should e'er the fortune be my lot
To be made a wealthy bride,
I'll glad my parents' lowly cot,
All their pleasure and their pride:
And when I'm drest all in my best,
I'll trip away like lady gay,
I'll trip, I'll trip away.
And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
Look at little Taffline with a silken sash,
And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
Look at little Taffline, Look at little Taffline,
Oh, look at little Taffline with the silken sash!
There was also a character called Little Taffline in T. Dibdin's
_St. David's Day_, the music for which was compiled and composed
by Thomas Attwood, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Her other song, 'The Dashing White Sergeant,' was a martial
and very popular setting of some words by General Burgoyne.
Micawber could both sing and hum, and when music failed him
he fell back on quotations. As he was subject to extremes
of depression and elevation it was nothing unusual for him
to commence a Saturday evening in tears and finish up with
singing 'about Jack's delight being his lovely Nan' towards
the end of it. Here we gather that one of his favourite songs
was C. Dibdin's 'Lovely Nan,' containing these two lines:
But oh, much sweeter than all these
Is Jack's delight, his lovely Nan.
His musical powers made him useful at the club-room in the
King's Bench, where David discovered him leading the chorus of
'Gee up, Dobbin.' This would be 'Mr. Doggett's Comicall Song'
in the farce _The Stage Coach_, containing the lines--
With a hey gee up, gee up, hay ho;
With a hay gee, Dobbin, hey ho!
'Auld Lang Syne' was another of Mr. Micawber's favourites,
and when David joined the worthy pair in their lodgings at
Canterbury they sang it with much energy. To use Micawber's
words--
When we came to 'Here's a hand, my trusty frere' we
all joined hands round the table; and when we declared
we would 'take a right gude willie waught,' and hadn't
the least idea what it meant, we were really affected.
The memory of this joyous evening recurred to Mr. M. at a later
date, after the feast in David's rooms, and he calls to mind
how they had sung
We twa had run about the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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