Note 100 — VOLUME V. (continued 8)

This and subsequent allusions to the Valentino, the Poses Plastiques, Brixton Treadmill, and other familiar objects of our youth, since swept away by the broom of Time, would fix the authorship of this ballad at a date anterior to the present generation. For instance, in stanza xiv., the students are described as singing now obsolete melodies of Ethiopian origin. In the present day the chosen chorus under similar circumstances would have been the “Ratcatcher’s Daughter,” or possibly, “Villikins.” The allusion to Cowell in stanza viii., reads like an interpolation.—Ed. “O.M.”