Samuel Lover was born in Dublin in 1797. As a novelist he was one of the most popular of the period in which he lived. He is acknowledged to have written the best Irish peasant sketches and the best Irish peasant songs in the language. Lover was the son of a Dublin stock-broker, who attempted to prepare his son for that business. At the age of seventeen, however, the boy turned his back on the office, and, with his scanty savings, he took up the study of art. Three years later he began to win success as a painter of miniatures. An admirable miniature of Paganini painted by Lover excited so much attention in London that the young artist was induced to go to the metropolis. There he spent a considerable part of his time in literary work.
"The Gridiron" was one of his first productions. His three-volume novel, "Rory O'More," appeared in 1836. This was dramatized and met with such success that its versatile author for a time devoted himself to playwriting. He also wrote the words and music of several operettas. As a song writer he now became one of the most popular in the United Kingdom.
On the day that Victoria was crowned Queen of England she was escorted to Buckingham Palace to the strains of "Rory O'More." His most popular novel was "Handy Andy." Lover visited the United States in 1846. He died in 1868. Besides his literary talent, he possessed a high degree of musical ability. Among Samuel Lover's descendants is Victor Herbert, the well-known musical director and composer.
A certain old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the ridiculous quite equaled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon certain festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by drawing out one of his servants who was exceedingly fond of what he termed his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services, had established a right of loquacity.
He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture to set him right.
If the squire said, "I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say, "throth you won't, sir"; and Pat was always right, for if any altercation arose upon the subject-matter in hand, he was sure to throw in some good reason, either from former service—general good conduct—or the delinquent's "wife and childher," that always turned the scale.
But I am digressing. On such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the master, after making certain "approaches," as a military man would say, as the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant, might, perchance, assail Pat thus:
"By the by, Sir John" (addressing a distinguished guest), "Pat has a very curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember, Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice paid to himself)—"you remember that queer adventure you had in France?"
"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise. "Was Pat ever in France?"