NEW SONG
LINES ADDRESSED TO MARK LEMON
1849
NEW SONG
Dickens, like Silas Wegg, would sometimes ‘drop into poetry’ when writing to intimate friends, as, for example, in a letter to Maclise, the artist, which began with a parody of Byron’s lines to Thomas Moore—
| ‘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.’ |
A more remarkable instance of his propensity to indulge in parody of this kind is to be found in a letter addressed to Mark Lemon in the spring of 1849. The novelist was then enjoying a holiday with his wife and daughters at Brighton, whence he wrote to Lemon (who had been ill), pressing him to pay them a visit. After commanding him to ‘get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of “Copperfield” No. 3—“simple and quiet, but very natural and touching”—Evening Bore,’ Dickens invites his friend in lines headed ‘New Song,’ and signed ‘T. Sparkler,’ the effusion also bearing the signatures of other members of the family party—Catherine Dickens, Annie Leech, Georgina Hogarth, Mary Dickens, Katie Dickens, and John Leech.