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FAMOUS SONGS
' home, sweet home.' " And yet, Mr. Planche allows Payne to have the full right and honour of the authorship of the words all his life, and not till twenty years after his death does he come forward with his claim. But long before this Michael John O'Sullivan, a journalist and writer of plays, gave it out that he not only wrote the song, but also the opera of " Clari" ! Of course it would be quite logical for a theat-rical manager to pay an author two hundred a n d fifty pounds for a work he did not write!— the sum that Kemble paid Payne for a piece that was written, according to their version, by Mr. Planche and Mr. O'Sullivan—not in collabora-tion, but separately ! And not only that. They allowed Payne's name to appear nightly in the bills and to be advertised on the song, and advertised on the book of the words, as published by Lacy in the Strand. Here is the title-page. "Clari, the Maid of Milan! A musical drama, in two acts, by John Howard Payne, Author of Brutus,'' The Lancers,'' Love in Humble Life,' ' Charles the Second,' ' Ali Pacha,' etc., etc." I think that should settle the matter. O'Sullivan's claim may be dismissed forthwith. As for Mr. Planche, we fancy his memory was playing him a trick—he was over eighty-two when he wrote the letter quoted,
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