in the melody of the Buffalo Gals, and can't play 'out
to-night,' and a white mouse, are the only amusements
left at Broadstairs.

'Buffalo Gals' was a very popular song 'Sung with great
applause by the Original Female American Serenaders.' (_c._
1845.) The first verse will explain the above allusion:

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 distin