It will be remembered that Mr. Bucket (B.H.) gained a wife by a similar display of vocal talent. After singing ‘Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,’ he informs his friend Mrs. Bagnet that this ballad was
his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar. Mr. Bucket's own words are ‘to come up to the scratch.’
Mrs. Micawber's ‘Little Taffline’ was a song in Storace's ballad opera Three and the Deuce, words by Prince Hoare. It will be interesting to see what the song which helped to mould Micawber's fate was like.
LITTLE TAFFLINE.
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Should e'er the fortune be my lot
To be made a wealthy bride,
I'll glad my parents' lowly cot,
All their pleasure and their pride:And when I'm drest all in my best,
I'll trip away like lady gay,
I'll trip, I'll trip away.And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
Look at little Taffline with a silken sash,
And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
And the lads will say, Dear heart, what a flash!
Look at little Taffline, Look at little Taffline,
Oh, look at little Taffline with the silken sash!
There was also a character called Little Taffline in T. Dibdin's St. David's Day, the music for which was compiled and composed by Thomas Attwood, organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Her other song, ‘The Dashing White Sergeant,’ was a martial and very popular setting of some words by General Burgoyne.
Micawber could both sing and hum, and when music failed him he fell back on quotations. As he was subject to extremes of depression and elevation it was nothing unusual for him to commence a Saturday evening in tears and finish up with singing ‘about Jack's delight being his lovely Nan’ towards the end of it. Here we gather that one of his favourite songs was C. Dibdin's ‘Lovely Nan,’ containing these two lines:
But oh, much sweeter than all these
Is Jack's delight, his lovely Nan.
His musical powers made him useful at the club-room in the King's Bench, where David discovered him leading the chorus of ‘Gee up, Dobbin.’ This would be ‘Mr. Doggett's Comicall Song’ in the farce The Stage Coach, containing the lines—
With a hey gee up, gee up, hay ho;
With a hay gee, Dobbin, hey ho!