he was at Wellington House Academy, in Hampstead Road, says that
music used to be taught there, and that Dickens received lessons
on the violin, but he made no progress, and soon relinquished
it. It was not until many years after that he made his third
and last attempt to become an instrumentalist. During his
first transatlantic voyage he wrote to Forster telling him
that he had bought an accordion.

The steward lent me one on the passage out, and I
regaled the ladies' cabin with my performances. You
can't think with what feelings I play 'Home, Sweet Home'
every night, or how pleasantly sad it makes us.

On the voyage back he gives the following description of the
musical talents of his fellow passengers:

One played the accordion, another the violin, and
another (who usually began at six o'clock a.m.) the key
bugle: the combined effect of which instruments, when
they all played different tunes, in different parts
of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing of
each other, as they sometimes did (everybody being
intensely satisfied with his own performance), was
sublimely hideous.

He does not tell us whether he was one of the performers on
these occasions.

But although he failed as an instrumentalist he took
delight in hearing music, and was always an appreciative yet