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About the year 1833 appeared the popular song "Alice Grey," by Mrs. Millard, but no other songs of hers appear to have survived, unless we take into account that quaint ditty " If I had a thousand a year," which was still popular some years ago.
"Kathleen Mavourneen' has long been a household word. The composer was F. Nicholls Crouch, who wrote a great number of songs during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the words being by Mrs. Julia Crawford, an Irishwoman. Mr. Fitzgerald in his book says that the publisher D'Almaine was supposed to have made over .£15,000 by this song, which, it is said, he bought from Crouch for a £10 note, though George Augustus Sala used to declare that five pounds sterling was the guerdon of Mr. Crouch for the song in question.
"It is recorded," says a recent writer, "that on the death of the sole surviving partner in the firm of publishers who owned the copyright of ' Kathleen Mavourneen ' the music-plates and copyright were sold in 1865 for five hundred and thirty pounds."
"Kathleen Mavourneen" is one of Clara Butt's favourite ballads ; "her interpretation of which," says the same writer, "is dramatically perfect, and fills one with 'thoughts to deep for words.''
Crouch appears to have been a ballad-singer |
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