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FAMOUS SONGS
sold. Its subsequent value was enormous. As an instance of the price obtained for favourite songs even after they may reasonably be sup-posed to have had their day, I may mention that the copyright of " Kathleen Mavourneen" not long ago was sold for £iog, and " I n the Gloaming" for £286. But there are some songs that are always in demand, and especially is this the case with those old time ballads which cele-brated singers of the day very wisely include in their repertoire.
The prolific Mrs. Crawford, who wrote so many popular lyrics in the forties and fifties, and gave us the words of the never-to-be-for-gotten " Kathleen Mavourneen," and the charm-ing " Ellen Astore; or The Flower of Kil-kenny," was also the authoress of both " Rest, Troubled Heart," and " Th e Gipsy Countess," once so extraordinarily popular, especially the duet, " T h e Gipsy Countess," which all senti-mental young couples used to sing two or three decades ago. " Rest, Troubled Heart," or, as it was frequently called, the " Song of Pestal," owed its origin to the fact that Colonel Pestal, at one time an officer in the Russian army, who was doomed to death for turning traitor to his country, wrote the beautiful melody to which the words were subsequently written, on the
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