Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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	KATE KEARNEY.	419
	speculative power, and singular observation," fell in love with the gay, brave, bright girl, and married her. Dr. Morgan was knighted, and bis ready-witted wife became a volumin­ous writer, and an entertainer of the literary and fashionable. They traveled on the con­tinent, and then settled in London. Lady Morgan survived her husband for sixteen years, and while life lasted was a lively, interesting, indispensable woman of society;—eccentric, but full of charity and pleasant acts. She says: " I know I am vain; but I have a right to be so. Look at the number of books I have written (more than seveuty volumes). Did ever woman move in a brighter sphere than I do? My dear, I have three invitations to dinner to-day; one from a Duchess, another from a Countess, a third from a Diplomatist—I will not tell you who—a very naughty man, who, of course, keeps the best society in London. Now, what right have I, my father's daughter, to this? What ami? A pensioned scribbler! Yet I am given gifts that queens might covet. Look at that little clock; that stood in Marie Antoinette's dressing-room. Princes and princesses, and celebrities of all kinds, have presented me with the souvenirs you see around me, and they would make a wiser woman vain." She used to say that she was born in "ancient ould Dublin," upon a Christmas day; but she always forgot to add the year. The best authorities say it was in 1777, and the cyclopaedias say: " It is usually stated that she was born in 1786, but as she refuses to tell the date of her birth, ' because dates are so cold, false, and erroneous,' the reader of her autobiography will do well to add about ten years to her age." A literary friend said to her: " Lady Morgan, I bought one of your books to-day. May I tell you the date ?" "Do," she answered, " but say it in a whisper." " Eighteen hundred and three!" She lifted her hand and looked unutterable things. Lady Morgan died, April 16, 1859. Her song is set to an old Irish melody.