The lavish use Shakespeare makes of musical allusion has often been the subject of comment Several well-known books exist which explain his references to music. They are antiquarian treatises of high value, describing to their readers the lute, the viol, and the recorder, giving the sources of the songs that are sung, and expounding the character of the dances. Technical expressions are explained, musical stage-directions enumerated, and the place of music on the Elizabethan stage set out.

I do not flatter myself that so numerous an assemblage has come here this evening to listen to me, for it is much more likely that' you have foregathered to hear Mr. Arthur Alexander play some of Scriabin's remarkable music. I cannot—at any rate this evening—enter into a full discussion of Scriabin's music and aims, as our present subject is concerned with the harmonic method of Scriabin rather than with his actual music.

From the earliest times England had been a nest of singing birds, and music was the common heritage of all. In Elizabethan days there were not one or two fine virginal composers, but a whole school of them, as is evident from the MSS. that have survived. They may be named as follows: the earlier were Parsons, Tallis, Blitheman, Byrd, Bull, Giles Farnaby, Munday, Hooper, Morley, Robert Johnson, Phillips, Weelkes, Warrock, Inglott, Richardson; the later were Gibbons, Cosyn, Tomkins, Peerson, Edward Johnson, Richard Farnaby, Strogers, Bevin, Facy, while of four others—Tisdall, Marchant, Oldfield, and Crofurd—nothing is known.

I have been asked to give some account of Purcell's “Dramatic Music.” This term is meant to include such of his stage works as are not of a sufficient scale to justify their being termed Operas. In the latter class are included “Dido and Æneas,” “Dioclesian,” “King Arthur,” “The Fairy Queen,” “Timon of Athens,” “The Indian Emperor,” and “The Tempest” These works therefore I shall not discuss. I may say also that I shall deal only with the musical side of this “Dramatic Music,” the editing of which for the Purcell Society has fallen to my lot. And this for two reasons, both very forcible ones. The first is that the dramatic point of view can be far better dealt with, when the operas are under consideration. For most of the music I have to deal with is really not dramatic at all. The second and even more convincing reason is that owing to an imperfect sympathy with stage matters I have not the requisite knowledge to deal with the subject, and it is better that I should leave it to more skilled hands.

The historians of music, in so far as they have discussed the relations of the art with the rites and doctrines of the Christian churches, have expatiated chiefly upon the works of such composers as Palestrina and J. S. Bach—to name two instances only: I mean those composers about whose greatness there can be no dispute, and whose claim to that reputation is based principally if not entirely upon works of an ecclesiastical character. If in the survey of any particular period it becomes necessary to mention composers of sacred music whose works are of a definitely inferior quality, that inferiority is generally ascribed to a want of true religious feeling either in the composers as individuals or in the age or the country in which they happened to live. It is the natural temptation of the musical historian to view these matters from a standpoint that is mainly aesthetic; but there is another aspect of the subject which must not be left out of account. If we turn to the ecclesiastical writers, we shall find that aesthetic and artistic considerations receive a very different treatment. The subject of music finds frequent mention in the early Christian Fathers, and although they recognize to the full the powerful influence which music may have upon the human mind, they are preoccupied with two aspects which to the pure musician have little significance. One of those aspects is the alleged moral danger of the art when not under the strict control of authority, and the other is its undoubted practical utility.

Four years ago, in a paper read before this Society, I attempted (with such materials as were at my command) a short review of Latin Church music by English composers of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At the kind invitation of your Council I propose to continue the subject this afternoon, and especially to deal with some composers whom I was obliged to pass over on the last occasion owing to lack of time or lack of data. As before, I labour under the disadvantage of having to describe music which is to a large extent inaccessible at the present day—most of which never appeared in print even at the time it was written—and which has to be sought, collected, and compared from such manuscripts (scattered up and down the country) as have escaped the ravages of time and of political and religious changes.

Members of the Musical Association do not need to be reminded of the late Dr. Cummings's investigations into the history of our National Anthem, and I do not propose to do more than refer very briefly to the conclusions to which he was led. Of course, in a subject of this kind, and one of such superlative importance in our history, new theories are often promulgated, and sometimes new facts come to light. My object in re-opening the subject to-day is due to a small discovery, as I venture to think it, which I described in an American periodical, the Musical Quarterly, in the issue of last October. About the same date, the pamphlet appeared which was commissioned by the Education Committee of the London County Council, and it is curious that the authors of this pamphlet, and I myself, should have arrived by different ways at very much the same conclusion, although it was obviously impossible either for me to know of the pamphlet before it was published, or for its authors to know of my article in the American periodical. The conclusion to which we have severally been led is that the song was originally in celebration of the house of Stuart, not of the house of Hanover. The pamphlet had been in existence for some time before I heard of it, and the task of obtaining a copy was very nearly too much for me. It would take too long to recount the difficulties which seem to beset the would-be purchaser, if my own experiences are anything but a series of unfortunate accidents. The pamphlet was reviewed in The Times, but it was not easy to find from the review how or where it was to be obtained. I am confident that many applications to the County Council offices are still “receiving attention,” a process which will have been going on for a good many months. Three or four booksellers in London were asked for it in vain, but at the long last I did obtain it, and here it actually is.

Imagine yourselves in a tropical forest. You see here pendulous trails of brilliantly-coloured flowers; there, bunches of gaudy fruits: high up, above your heads, filmy fronds of foliage wave in the breeze; at your feet gnarled and far-rambling roots wander in every direction. You wonder if you are beholding some fabled creeper of monstrous growth, or whether fruit, flowers and foliage belong to different plants that have become inextricably entangled. You attempt to follow a young shoot to its parent stem, and thence to its root; you find yourself baffled and baulked at every turn. Set yourselves the task of tracing the history of the creations named Intermezzi, Intermedii, Intermèdes, or Interludes to their source or sources, and you will experience similar feelings.