James T. Lightwood

“ Here is his advice to the love-stricken Mr. Toots, whom he recommends to
learn the guitar, or at least the flute; for women like music when you are paying your addresses to 'em, and he has found the advantage of it himself.
The flute was the instrument that Mr. Richard Swiveller took to when he heard that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever,
thinking that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. ”

“ SONGS AND SOME SINGERS The numerous songs and vocal works referred to by Dickens in his novels and other writings furnish perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most instructive, branch of this subject. His knowledge of song and ballad literature was extraordinary, and he did not fail to make good use of it. Not only are the quotations always well chosen and to the point, but the use of them has greatly added to the interest of such characters as Swiveller, Micawber, Cuttle, and many others, all of whom are of a very musical turn of mind. ”

“ Hardy, this gentleman was evidently deeply interested in all sorts and degrees of music, but he got out of his depth in a conversation with the much-travelled Captain Helves. After the three Miss Briggses had finished their guitar performances, Mr. Hardy approached the Captain with the question, ‘Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?’
‘Did you ever hear a tom-tom, sir?’ sternly inquired the Captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended. ”

“ There was really a very fair opera, but it is curious that the chorus has been always, time out of mind, made up of labourers in the quarries, who don't know a note of music, and sing entirely by ear.
But much as he loved music, Dickens could never bear the least sound or noise while he was studying or writing, and he ever waged a fierce war against church bells and itinerant musicians. ”

“ Carriages roll up, richly dressed people take their places and inspect each other through their glasses.
The organ peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise, stare about them and converse in whispers.
Dickens passes from church to chapel. Here, he says,
the hymn is sung—not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk. ”

“ Dickens was certainly partial to the cricket, for elsewhere (M.H.C.) we read of the clock that
makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth.
There are two or three references to the key bugle, which also used to be known as the Kent bugle. It was a popular instrument half a century ago, as the addition of keys gave it a much greater range of notes than the ordinary bugle possessed. A notable though inefficient performer was the driver who took Martin Chuzzlewit up to London. ”

“ I truly love Dickens; and discern in the inner man of him a tone of real Music which struggles to express itself, as it may in these bewildered, stupefied and, indeed, very crusty and distracted days—better or worse! ”

“ No one who has not had occasion to refer to them can have any idea of the hundreds, nay, of the thousands, of song-books that were turned out from the various presses under an infinitude of titles during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There is nothing like them at the present day, and the reasons for their publication have long ceased to exist. It should be explained that the great majority of these books contained the words only, very few of them being furnished with the musical notes. Dickens has made use of considerably over a hundred different songs. ”

“ Guitar
Although the guitar was a fashionable instrument sixty years ago, there are but few references to it. This was the instrument that enabled the three Miss Briggses, each of them performers, to eclipse the glory of the Miss Tauntons, who could only manage a harp. On the eventful day of ‘The Steam Excursion’ (S.B.) the three sisters brought their instruments, carefully packed up in dark green cases,
which were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat, accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take at least a week's incessant playing to get through. ”

“ Bagnet, ‘there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! Could you give us “British Grenadiers,” my fine fellow?’ And the ‘fine fellow,’ who was none other than Bagnet junior (also known as ‘Woolwich’) , promptly
fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much enlivened, beats time, and never fails to come in sharp with the burden ‘Brit Ish Gra-a-anadeers.’
Our national anthem is frequently referred to. ”

“ DICKENS AS A MUSICIAN The attempts to instil the elements of music into Charles Dickens when he was a small boy do not appear to have been attended with success. Mr. Kitton tells us that he learnt the piano during his school days, but his master gave him up in despair. Mr. Bowden, an old schoolfellow of the novelist's when he was at Wellington House Academy, in Hampstead Road, says that music used to be taught there, and that Dickens received lessons on the violin, but he made no progress, and soon relinquished it. ”

“ There is no living writer who has such a wonderful knowledge of old songs as Mr. Kidson, a knowledge which he is ever ready to put at the disposal of others. Even now there are some half-dozen songs which every attempt to run to earth has failed, though I have tried to ‘mole 'em out’ (as Mr. Pancks would say) by searching through some hundreds of song-books and some thousands of separate songs. ”

“ Solomon Daisy (B.R.) is bell-ringer and parish clerk of Chigwell, though we hear nothing of his exploits in these capacities. However, he must have been a familiar figure to the villagers as he stood in his little desk on the Sunday, giving out the psalms and leading the singing, because when in the rifled and dismantled Maypole he appeals to the poor witless old Willet as to whether he did not know him—
‘You know us, don't you, Johnny?’ said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. ”

“ When we first meet Mark Tapley he is singing merrily, and there are dozens of others who sing either for their own delight or to please others. Even old Fips, of Austin Friars, the dry-as-dust lawyer, sang songs to the delight of the company gathered round the festive board in Martin Chuzzlewit's rooms in the Temple. Truly Dickens must have loved music greatly himself to have distributed such a love of it amongst his characters. ”

“ In his dealings with the drama Dickens was frequently his own bandmaster and director of the music. For instance, in No Thoroughfare we find this direction: ‘Boys enter and sing “God Save the Queen” (or any school devotional hymn) .’ At Obenreizer's entrance a ‘mysterious theme is directed to be played,’ that gentleman being ‘well informed, clever, and a good musician.’
Dickens was concerned in the production of one operetta—The Village Coquettes—for which he wrote the words, and John Hullah composed the music. ”

“ Yet, in spite of all this, Dickens shows—through his characters—a deep interest in bells and bell-lore. Little Paul Dombey finds a man mending the clocks at Dr. Blimber's Academy, and asks a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks; as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding-bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living ”

“ The only person approaching Jasper in the choir is one of the lay clerks who looks after the music, but who of course has nothing to do with setting the music for the month. I don't think Dickens had much idea of church order or of cathedral worship, though he may have gone over the cathedral with a verger on occasions. The music of a cathedral is always in the hands of the precentor, assisted by the organist. ”

“ Horatio Sparkins,
tried over glees and trios without number; they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonized beautifully. To be sure, they all sang the first part; and Horatio, in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent of knowing a note of music; still, they passed the time very agreeably.
Glee-singing seems to have been a feature in the social life of Cloisterham (E.D.) .
‘We shall miss you, Jasper’ (said Mr. Crisparkle) , ‘at the “Alternate Musical Wednesdays” to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. Good-night, God bless you. ”

“ VIOLIN, VIOLONCELLO, HARP, PIANO Dickens' orchestras are limited, both in resources and in the number of performers; in fact, it would be more correct to call them combinations of instruments. Some of them are of a kind not found in modern works on instrumentation, as, for instance, at the party at Trotty Veck's (Ch.) when a ‘band of music’ burst into the good man's room, consisting of a drum, marrow-bones and cleavers, and bells, ‘not the bells but a portable collection on a frame.’ We gather from Leech's picture that other instrumentalists were also present. ”

“ Perhaps the best known are those which ‘my lady Bowley’ quotes in The Chimes, and which she had ‘set to music on the new system’:
Oh let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.
The reference to the ‘new system’ is not quite obvious. Dickens may have been thinking of the ‘Wilhem’ method of teaching singing which his friend Hullah introduced into England, or it may be a reference to the Tonic Sol-fa system, which had already begun to make progress when The Chimes was written in 1844. ”

“ Braham, the composer, was one of the leading tenors of the day, and thus had the advantage of being able to introduce his own songs to the public. The novelist's dictum that ‘composers can very seldom sing their own music or anybody else's either’ (P.P. 15) may be true in the main, but scarcely applies to Braham, who holds very high rank amongst English tenors. Another song which he wrote with the title ‘The Victory and Death of Lord Viscount Nelson’ met with no success. The one quoted by Micawber was naturally one of Captain Cuttle's favourites, and it is also made use of by Silas Wegg. ”

“ Dombey, shows what bridal parties had to put up with in the good old days:
The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge 13 ; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off ; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe. ”

“ When Dickens wrote his earlier works it was not considered the correct thing for a gentleman to play the piano, though it might be all very well for the lower classes and the music teacher. Consequently we read of few male performers on the instrument. Mr. Skimpole could play the piano, and of course Jasper had a ‘grand’ in his room at Cloisterham. ”

“ Captain Cuttle is almost as full of melody as Micawber, though his repertoire is chiefly confined to naval ditties. His great song is ‘Lovely Peg,’ and his admiration for Florence Dombey induces him to substitute her name in the song, though the best he can accomplish is ‘Lovely Fleg.’
There are at least three eighteenth-century ballads with Peg, or Lovely Peg, for the subject, and it is not certain which of these the Captain favoured. ”

“ Do, child, it will please your old father.’ She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic, as moved me.
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds, too late, that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away? ”

“ Dickens has little to say about the music of his time, but in the reprinted paper called Old Lamps for New Ones (written in 1850) , which is a strong condemnation of pre-Raphaelism in art, he attacks a similar movement in regard to music, and makes much fun of the Brotherhood. He detects their influence in things musical, and writes thus:
In Music a retrogressive step in which there is much hope, has been taken. ”

“ His sister Sally is not a songster, nor is Quilp, though he quotes ‘Sally in our Alley’ in reference to the former. All we know about his musical attainments is that he
occasionally entertained himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man. ”

“ Bass singers, and especially the Basso Profundos, will be glad to know that Dickens pays more attention to them than to the other voices, though it must be acknowledged that the references are of a humorous nature. ‘Bass!’ as the young gentleman in one of the Sketches remarks to his companion about the little man in the chair, ‘bass! I believe you. He can go down lower than any man; so low sometimes that you can't hear him.’ ”

“ Piano
Lady musicians are numerous, and of very varied degrees of excellence. Amongst the pianists is Miss Teresa Malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver Mr. Horatio Sparkins (S.B.T. 5) . Her contribution to a musical evening was ‘The Fall of Paris,’ played, as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a masterly manner.
There was a song called ‘The Fall of Paris,’ but it is most probable that Dickens was thinking of a very popular piece which he must have often heard in his young days, of which the full title was ”

“ This place of entertainment was situated in Penton Street, Islington, near the top of Pentonville Road, and when Dickens wrote his sketch the place had been in existence nearly a hundred years. Early in the nineteenth century it became a place of varied amusements, from balloon ascents to comic songs. Dickens visited the place about 1835. The titles of some of the pieces he mentions as having been sung there are real, while others (such as ‘Red Ruffian, retire’) appear to be invented. ”

“ He is full of song when entertaining the Marchioness. ‘Do they often go where glory waits 'em?’ he asks, on hearing that Sampson and Sally Brass have gone out for the evening. He accepts the statement that Miss Brass thinks him a ‘funny chap’ by affirming that ‘Old King Cole was a merry old soul’; and on taking his leave of the little slavey he says,
‘Good night, Marchioness. ”