an almost any night-piece written since the Pole
appropriated that form bodily from John Field and made it his own.

One of his most original pieces is the Capriccio of his D minor Suite,
which is also unusually brilliant in color at times; and he has an
Allegretto that is a scherzo of the good old whole-souled humor.
Foote, in fact, is never sickly in sentiment.

Of his rather numerous songs, the older English poets, like Marlowe,
Sidney, Shakespeare, Suckling, and Herrick, have given him much
inspiration. The song "It Was a Lover and his Lass" is especially
taking. His three songs, "When You Become a Nun, Dear," "The Road to
Kew," and "Ho, Pretty Page!" written by modern poets in a half-archaic
way, display a most delicious fund of subtile and ironic musical
humor. "The Hawthorn Wins the Damask Rose" shows how really fine a
well conducted English ballad can be. Among his sadder songs, the
"Irish Folksong," "I'm Wearing Awa'," and the weird "In a Bower" are
heavy with deepest pathos, while "Sweet Is True Love" is as wildly
intense and as haunting in its woe as the fate of the poor Elaine,
whose despair it sings. This I count one of the most appealing of
modern songs.

[Music: IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS

ARTHUR FOOTE, Op. 10, No. 1.

1. It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey and a ho,
With a hey and a ho, and a hey, and a hey non-i-no!
That o'er the green cornfield did pass,
In the springtime, the springtime,
The only pretty ring-time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding!
Sweet lovers love the spring.

2. And therefore take the present time,
With a hey and a ho,
With a hey and a ho, and a hey, and a hey non-i-no!
For love is crowned with the prime,
In the springtime, the springtime,
The only pretty ring-time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding!
Sweet lovers love the Spring. (_Shakespeare._)

Copyright, 1886, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co.]

His greatest work is undoubtedly his symphonic prologue to Dante's
story of "Francesca da Rimini," for full orchestra. Without being
informed upon the subject, I fancy a certain programmism in the
prologue that is not indicated in the quotation at the beginning of
the work:

"Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria."

The prologue, however, seems to me to contain more than the
psychological content of these lines from the fifth canto of the
"Inferno."