As I went lum'rin' down de street, down de street, A 'ansom gal I chanc'd to meet, oh, she was fair to view. Buffalo gals, can't ye come out to-night, come out to-night, come out to-night; Buffalo gals, can't ye come out to-night, and dance by the light of the moon. We find some interesting musical references and memories in the novelist's letters. Writing to Wilkie Collins in reference to his proposed sea voyage, he quotes Campbell's lines from 'Ye Mariners of England': As I sweep Through the deep When the stormy winds do blow. There are other references to this song in the novels. I have pointed out elsewhere that the last line also belongs to a seventeenth-century song. Writing to Mark Lemon (June, 1849) he gives an amusing parody of Lesbia hath a beaming eye, beginning Lemon is a little hipped. In a letter to Maclise he says: My foot is in the house, My bath is on the sea, And before I take a souse, Here's a single note to thee. These lines are a reminiscence of Byron's ode to Tom Moore, written from Venice on July 10, 1817: My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea, But before I go, Tom Moore, Here's a double health to thee! The words were set to music by Bishop. This first verse had a special attraction for Dickens, and he gives us two or three variations of it, including a very apt one from Dick Swiveller (see p. 126). Henry F. Chorley, the musical critic, was an intimate friend of Dickens. On one occasion he went to hear Chorley lecture on 'The National Music of the World,' and subsequently wrote him a very friendly letter criticizing his delivery, but speaking in high terms of the way he treated his subject. In one of his letters he makes special reference to the singing of the Hutchinson family.[5] Writing to the Countess of Blessington, he says: I must have some talk with you about these American singers. They must never go back to their own country without your having heard them sing Hood's 'Bridge of Sighs.' Amongst the distinguished visitors at Gad's Hill was Joachim, who was always a welcome guest, and of whom Dickens once said 'he is a noble fellow.' His daughter writes in reference to this visit: I never remember seeing him so wrapt and absorbed as he was then, on hearing him play; and the wonderful simplicity and _un_-self-consciousness of the genius went straight to my father's heart, and made a fast bond of sympathy between those two great men. _In Music Drama_