ns and a host of smaller men
developed instrumental music, and, though the forms they used were
thrown aside when Charles II. arrived, the power of handling the
instruments remained as a legacy to Charles's men. Charles drove the
secular movement faster ahead by banning the old ecclesiastical music
(which, it appears, gave him "the blues"), and by compelling his young
composers to write livelier strains for the church, that is, church
music which was in reality nothing but secular music. He sent Pelham
Humphries to Paris, and when Humphries came back "an absolute
Monsieur" (who does not remember that ever-green entry in the Diary?)
he brought with him all that could possibly have been learnt from
Lulli. He died at twenty-seven, having been Purcell's master; and
though Purcell's imagination was richer, deeper, more strenuous in the
ebb and flow of its tides, one might fancy that the two men had but
one spirit, which went on growing and fetching forth the fruits of the
spirit, while young Humphries' body decayed by the side of his younger
wife's in the Thames-sodden vaults of Westminster Abbey.

IV.

A complete list of Purcell's compositions appears somewhat formidable
at a first glance, but when one comes to examine it carefully the
solidity seems somewhat to melt out of it. The long string of church
pieces is made up of anthems, many of them far from long. The forty
odd "operas" are not operas at all, but sets of incidental pieces and
songs for plays, and some of the sets are very short. Thus Dryden
talks of Purcell setting "my three songs," and there are only half a
dozen "curtain-tunes," _i.e._ entr'actes. Many of the harpsichord
pieces are of tiny proportions. The sonatas of three and four parts
are no larger than Mozart's piano sonatas. Still, taking into account
the noble quality that is constantly maintained, we must admit that
Purcell used astonishingly the short time he was given. Much of his
music is lost; more of it lies in manuscript at the British Museum and
elsewhere. Some of it was issued last century, some early in this.
Four expensive volumes have been wretchedly edited and issued by the
Purcell Society, and those amongst us who live to the age of
Methuselah will probably see all the accessible works printed by this
body. Some half century ago Messrs. Novello published an edition of
the church music, stupidly edited by the stupidest editor who ever
laid clumsy fingers on a masterpiece. A shameful edi