: no fewer than thirty to which he had also put
the music and over fifty to which the music was composed by others, but
which with acceptance he sang. Judging by the titles and the first
lines, which in the advertisement are always given, these songs of the
sixties were very much better things than most of the songs of our
enlightened day. They seem to have had character, a humorous
sententiousness, and a genial view of life. And judging by his portrait
on the cover, Harry Clifton was a kindly, honest type of man, to whom
such accessories of the modern comic singer's success as the
well-advertised membership of a night club, or choice of an expensive
restaurant, were a superfluity.

Having read these letters and the list of songs, I called on a friend
who was at that moment lying on a bed of sickness, from which, alas! he
never rose--the late George Bull, the drollest raconteur in London and
one of the best of men, who, so far as I am concerned, carried away with
him an irreplaceable portion of the good humour of life; and I found
that the name of Harry Clifton touched more than one chord. He had heard
Harry Clifton sing. As a child, music-halls were barred to him, but
Harry Clifton, it seems, was so humane and well-grounded--his
fundamentals, as Dr. Johnson would say, were so sound--that he sang also
at Assembly Rooms, and there my friend was taken, in his tender years,
by his father, to hear him. There he heard the good fellow, who was
conspicuously jolly and most cordially Irish, sing several of his great
hits, and in particular "A Motto for Every Man," "Paddle Your Own
Canoe," and "Lannigan's Ball" (set to a most admirable jig tune which
has become a classic), one phrase from which was adopted into the Irish
vernacular as a saying: "Just in time for Lannigan's ball." Clifton
might indeed be called the Tom Moore of his day, with as large a public,
although not quite so illigant a one. For where Moore warbled to the
ladies, Clifton sang to the people. Such a ballad as that extolling the
mare of Pat of Mullingar must have gone straight to the hearts of the
countrymen of Mr. Flurry Knox:

They may talk of Flying Childers,
And the speed of Harkaway,
Till the fancy it bewilders
As you list to what they say.
But for rale blood and beauty,
You may travel near and far--
The fastest mare you'll find belongs
To Pat of Mullingar.

An old lady in Dublin who remembers Clifton singing