Dickens was concerned in the production of one operetta—­The Village Coquettes—­for which he wrote the words, and John Hullah composed the music.  It consists of songs, duets, and concerted pieces, and was first produced at St. James’s Theatre, London, on December 6, 1836.  The following year it was being performed at Edinburgh when a fire broke out in the theatre, and the instrumental scores together with the music of the concerted pieces were destroyed.  No fresh copy was ever made, but the songs are still to be obtained.  Mr. Kitton, in his biography of the novelist, says, ’The play was well received, and duly praised by prominent musical journals.’

The same writer gives us to understand that Hullah originally composed the music for an opera called The Gondolier, but used the material for The Village Coquettes.  Braham, the celebrated tenor, had a part in it.  Dickens says in a letter to Hullah that he had had some conversation with Braham about the work.  The singer thought very highly of it, and Dickens adds: 

His only remaining suggestion is that Miss Rainforth[6] will want another song when the piece is in rehearsal—­’a bravura—­something in “The soldier tired” way.’

We have here a reference to a song which had a long run of popularity.  It is one of the airs in Arne’s Artaxerxes, an opera which was produced in 1761, and which held the stage for many years.  There is a reference to this song in Sketches by Boz, when Miss Evans and her friends visited the Eagle.  During the concert ‘Miss Somebody in white satin’ sang this air, much to the satisfaction of her audience.

Dickens wrote a few songs and ballads, and in most cases he fell in with the custom of his time, and suggested the tune (if any) to which they were to be sung.  In addition to those that appear in the various novels, there are others which deserve mention here.

In 1841 he contributed three political squibs in verse to the Examiner, one being the ‘Quack Doctor’s Proclamation,’ to the tune of ‘A Cobbler there was,’ and another called ‘The fine old English Gentleman.’

For the Daily News (of which he was the first editor) he wrote ‘The British Lion, a new song but an old story,’ which was to be sung to the tune of the ‘Great Sea Snake.’  This was a very popular comic song of the period, which described a sea monster of wondrous size: 

    One morning from his head we bore
      With every stitch of sail,
    And going at ten knots an hour
      In six months came to his tail.

Three of the songs in the Pickwick Papers (referred to elsewhere) are original, while Blandois’ song in Little Dorrit, ‘Who passes by this road so late,’ is a translation from the French.  This was set to music by R.S.  Dalton.

In addition to these we find here and there impromptu lines which have no connexion with any song.  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’: