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STORIES OF
a phenomenal reception, though many authori-ties condemned it as mere tinsel. Berlioz, the French composer, who detested Flotow, said " the beauty of the Irish melody served to dis-infect the rottenness of the 'Martha' music," which was spiteful, silly, and weak. But this brings us to the original of the introduced number. Thomas Moore, than whom there has never been a more un-Irish Irish writer, evi-dently came upon the melody to which he wrote the words commencing, " Tis the last Rose of Summer," in a third-hand manner, for he in-genuously calls it " The Groves of Blarney," which was quite a modern production, as far as title and words are concerned, written by Richard Alfred Milliken, who was born at Castle Martyr, Co. Cork, only twenty-three years before Thomas Moore saw the light in Dublin, which does not say much for that deep acquaintance with ancient music which Moore always professed. Now, the " Groves of Blarney" was avowedly a bur-lesque on " Castle Hyde," the fulsome and trashy production of a " literary" weaver named Barrett, in 1790. Barrett, who was what we should term a crank in these days, filled up his spare time as an itinerant bard, and with the view of being paid for his trouble, composed a song in praise (as he doubtless intended it) of
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