The Coster's Serenade
Albert Chevalier, a "coster poet", music-hall artist, and musician of French extraction was born in Hammersmith. He is a careful, competent actor of minor parts, and sings his own little ditties extremely well.
APPENDIX
THERE are still one or two "waifs and strays" to be mentioned:—
I.
In Don Juan, canto XI, stanzas xvii—xix, Byron thus describes one of his dramatis personæ.
Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town,
A thorough varmint and a real swell…
Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled,
His pockets first, and then his body riddled.
* * * * *
He from the world had cut off a great man
Who in his time had made heroic bustle.
Who in a row like Tom could lead the van,
Booze in the ken, or in the spellken hustle?
Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bow Street's ban)
On the high-toby-splice so flash the muzzle?
Who on a lark, with Black-eyed Sal (his blowing)
So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?
In a note Byron says, "The advance of science and of language has rendered it unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following is the stanza of a song which was very popular, at least in my early days:—"