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104 A CENTURY OF BALLADS
Fanny," to which Haynes Bayly afterwards wrote new words and renamed it "The Lover's Mistake," in which form it was sung by Madame Vestris in the comedy of Paul Pry. Some years later, when studying composition under Charles Horn, the composer of "Cherry Ripe," Balfe relates how he turned into the theatre to hear Madame Vestris sing his master's famous comÂposition, which she did, and then to his surprise followed it up with his own "Young Fanny." Overcome with excitement, he turned to the people near him and said, " I wrote that song" ; but seeing the incredulous smiles on the faces around him, he felt suddenly overcome with confusion, and turned and left the theatre. He was about sixteen at the time.
His first opera, The Siege of Roc he lie, was produced in 1835, and proved signally successful. One song, "The Cottage near Rochelle," became a great favourite. But it was his next opera, The Maid of Artois, in which Malibran scored such a triumph, that contained one of the most popular songs he ever wrote, and, according to one of his biographers, "perhaps the most popular song in England that our days have known "—" The Light of Other Days."
This song was created by Henry Phillips, the famous baritone, himself a composer in a small way. At one of the rehearsals of The Maid of |
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