oes not refer to its legs),
while in a letter to Forster he complains bitterly of the
vagrant musicians at Broadstairs, where he 'cannot write half
an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells,
or glee singers.' The barrel-organ, which he somewhere calls
an 'Italian box of music,' was one source of annoyance, but
bells were his special aversion. 'If you know anybody at St.
Paul's,' he wrote to Forster, 'I wish you'd send round and ask
them not to ring the bell so. I can hardly hear my own ideas
as they come into my head, and say what they mean.' His bell
experiences at Genoa are referred to elsewhere (p. 57).

How marvellously observant he was is manifest in the numerous
references in his letters and works to the music he heard in
the streets and squares of London and other places. Here is
a description of Golden Square, London, W. (_N.N._):

Two or three violins and a wind instrument from
the Opera band reside within its precincts. Its
boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos
and harps float in the evening time round the head of
the mournful statue, the guardian genius of the little
wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square....
Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade
the evening's silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco
scent the air. There, snuff and cigars and German
pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide
the supremacy between them. It is the region of song
and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden
Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily
as they raise their voices within its boundaries.

We have another picture in the description of Dombey's house,
where--

the summer sun was never on the street but in the
morning, about breakfast-time.... It was soon gone
again, to return no more that day, and the bands of
music and the straggling Punch's shows going after
it left it a prey to the most dismal of organs and
white mice.

_As a Singer_

Most of the writers about Dickens, and especially his personal
friends, bear testimony both to his vocal power and his love
of songs and singing. As a small boy we read of him and his
sister Fanny standing on a table singing songs, and acting them
as they sang. One of his favourite recitations was Dr. Watts'
'The voice of the sluggard,' which he used to give with great
effect. The memory of these word