Samuel Lover

Samuel Lover (24 February 1797 – 6 July 1868), also known as "Ben Trovato" ("well invented"), was an Irish songwriter, composer, novelist, and a painter of portraits, chiefly miniatures. He was the grandfather of Victor Herbert.

Samuel Lover

Life

Lover was born at number 60 Grafton Street, Dublin and went to school at Samuel Whyte's at 79 Grafton Street, now home to Bewley's Café. By 1830 he was secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy and lived at number 9 D'Olier Street. In 1835 he moved to London and began composing music for a series of comic stage works.[1] To some of them, like the operetta Il Paddy Whack in Italia (1841), he contributed both words and music, for others he merely contributed a few songs.

Lover produced a number of Irish songs, of which several – including The Angel's Whisper, Molly Bawn, and The Four-leaved Shamrock – attained great popularity. He also wrote novels, of which Rory O'Moore (in its first form a ballad), and Handy Andy are the best known, and short Irish sketches which, with his songs, he combined into a popular entertainment called Irish Nights or Irish Evenings. With the latter, he toured North America during 1846-8. He joined with Charles Dickens in founding Bentley's Magazine.

"When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen." — Samuel Lover

Lover's grandson was composer Victor Herbert whose mother was Lover's daughter Fanny. Herbert is best remembered for his many successful musicals and operettas that premiered on Broadway. As a small child he lived with the Lovers in a musical environment following the divorce of his mother.[2]

Death and legacy

Lover died on 6 July 1868 in Saint Helier on Jersey. A memorial in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin summarises his achievements:

Poet, painter, novelist and composer, who, in the exercise of a genius as distinguished in its versatility as in its power, by his pen and pencil illustrated so happily the characteristics of the peasantry of his country that his name will ever be honourably identified with Ireland.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.

In the 2013 computer game "BioShock Infinite", the Lover piece "Saddle The Pony" (from Rory O'More), is heard in Battleship Bay, where Elizabeth is seen dancing to it. It is performed by an accordion player, a violinist, and a pianist.

Selected writings
  • Songs and Legends of the Irish People (1831)
  • Legends and Stories of Ireland (London: Richard Edward King, n.d. [1834])
  • Rory O'More: A National Romance. Novel (London: R. Bentley, 1837; repr. London: F. Warne & Co., 1879)
  • Songs and Ballads (London: Chapman and Hall, 1839)
  • Handy Andy. A Tale of Irish Life (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1841)
  • Treasure Trove/He Would Be a Gentleman

Selected compositions

Stage (to his own librettos)

  • Rory O'More, comic opera (1837)
  • The White Horse of the Peppers, dramatic romance (1838)
  • Snap Apple Night, or A Kick-up in Kerry, musical drama (1839)
  • The Greek Boy, musical drama (1840)
  • Il Paddy Whack in Italia, 1-act-operetta (1841)
  • The Irish Tourist's Ticket [music only, text by P.H. Hatch] (1853)

Bibliography
  • William Bayle Bernard: Life of Samuel Lover (London: H.S. King & Co. and New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1874)
  • Andrew James Symington: Samuel Lover: A Biographical Sketch (London: Blackie & Son, 1880)

References
  1. David Larkin: "Lover, Samuel", in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. by H. White & B. Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, vol. 2, p. 600-1.
  2. Casey, Marion R. "Was Victor Herbert Irish?", History Ireland, issue 1 (January/February 2017), Volume 25
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