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FAMOUS SONGS
it, and Lord Brougham refers to it in one of his great Parliamentary speeches. Milliken, in all probability, wrote " The Groves of Blarney" in 1796. Thomas Moore must have heard the melody when he was at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree in 1798, and almost im-mediately after left for England, where he event-ually settled. He may never have known that Milliken was the author of the " Groves of Blar-ney," though Richard Jones, an accomplished Metropolitan comedian, records that he obtained copies of the song in Cork, in the summer of 1800, and that he and Mathews, the great actor and mimic, carried it back to London, where they sang it at concerts, and in their entertain-ments. The first instalment of the " Irish Melo-dies," with Moore's very un-Irish words, was issued in 1813, and the rest at varying inter-vals. Milliken died, by the way, in 1815. It has been computed that Moore received for the " Melodies" remuneration averaging one hundred and twenty-one pounds per song, or six pounds per line. Very comforting re-muneration, too!
But to return to "The Last Rose of Sum-mer." Wherever Moore obtained the melody it is certain he could not have known it in its original form as played by the travelling bards
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