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230 National Music of the World.
concessions to our then poor popular taste : a luckless and foolish thing, if it be done by any artist in defiance of conscience; a sad thing, if it be done with acquiescence of conscience.
The very great and English beauty of Bishop's music—always the best when his words were the best—makes me recall his career with sadness, as though it was an imperfect career.
Among our peculiar treasures is the glee, as distinguished from the madrigal; the part-song for the voices of the human quartet. That this form has been abused by a puerile mode of treatment, has nothing to do with its intrinsic beauty. I am not going to travel through the ' Convito Armonico,' but I will just remind the reader of Stevens's exquisite setting of 'Ye spotted snakes,' and mention the most perfect example of a glee-writer that England has possessed—since of those who are happily still living I should conceive it unbecoming to speak. I allude to Horsley : an artist who passed away from us full of years, only lately; and who was laid in his grave in the midst of respectful friends, retained throughout a patriarch's life by an uprightness which was not to be shaken, and by musical endowments of pure quality and high order. |
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