xceptional good
fortune that gave C.B. Hawley a father who added to the dignity of
being a tiller of the soil the refinements of great musical taste and
skill. His house at Brookfield, Conn., contained not only a grand
piano, but a pipe organ as well; and Hawley's mother was blessed with
a beautiful and cultivated voice.

At the age of thirteen (he was born St. Valentine's Day, 1858) Hawley
was a church organist and the conductor of musical affairs in the
Cheshire Military Academy, from which he graduated. He went to New
York at the age of seventeen, studying the voice with George James
Webb, Rivarde, Foederlein, and others, and composition with Dudley
Buck, Joseph Mosenthal, and Rutenber.

His voice brought him the position of soloist at the Calvary Episcopal
Church, at the age of eighteen. Later he became assistant organist at
St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, under George William Warren. For the
last fourteen years he has had charge of the summer music at St. James
Chapel, in Elberon, the chapel attended by Presidents Grant and
Garfield. For seventeen years he has been one of the leading spirits
of the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and for ten years a member of the
Mendelssohn Quartet Club. Most of his part songs were written for the
club and first sung at its concerts. He is also a successful teacher
of the voice, and has been too busy to write a very large volume of
compositions. But those published show the authentic fire.

Notable features of Hawley's compositions are the taking quality of
the melody, its warm sincerity, and the unobtrusive opulence in color
of the accompaniment. This is less like an answering, independent
voice than like a many-hued, velvety tapestry, backgrounding a
beautiful statue. It is only on second thought and closer study that
one sees how well concealed is the careful and laborious polish _ad
unguem_ of every chord. This is the true art of song, where the lyrics
should seem to gush spontaneously forth from a full heart and yet
repay the closer dissection that shows the intellect perfecting the
voice of emotion.

Take, for example, his "Lady Mine," a brilliant rhapsody, full of the
spring, and enriched with a wealth of color in the accompaniment till
the melody is half hidden in a shower of roses. It required courage to
make a setting of "Ah, 'Tis a Dream!" so famous through Lassen's
melody; but Hawley has said it in his own way in an air thrilled with
longing and an accompaniment as full of s