it.

The volume was Shakespeare's lyrics translated into German, the poem was "Hark, Hark, the Lark." After a little while (for Schubert's composition was ever spontaneous) he spoke, saying, "What a pity that I have no music-paper! I have just the melody for this poem!" Doppler, one of the party, was equal to the emergency; drawing the lines of the musical staff on the back of the bill of fare, he handed the improvised music-paper to the composer. On the back of that bill of fare, while waiting for his breakfast, amid the hurly-burly of an open-air restaurant, Schubert composed "Hark, Hark, the Lark," a song which has remained a classic ever since. Nor was it changed in any degree from this first improvised sketch, for Schubert was notorious for his carelessness in the matter of revision; he almost invariably gave his first draught of any composition to his publisher, and it is not stretching the imagination to suppose that he did no more than copy the music in this case. As the words have already been quoted, it is unnecessary to reproduce them here.

It would be unjust to end this chapter without speaking of the great achievements of English composers in the Shakespearian field. Even at a time when England did not fully appreciate its greatest poet (the time of Charles II., for example), the composers seem to have understood what a mine of poetry was here waiting to be wedded with tones. Dr. John

Wilson' was the first to enter the field with worthy music, but an infinitely greater composer soon followed, England's greatest musical genius, Henry Purcell. This great master's setting of the lyrics and other short poems of Shadwell's version of "The Tempest" was the greatest tribute to Shakespeare up to the time (1690), and the settings of "Come unto these yellow sands" and "Full fathom five" have never been excelled. It is a pity that Shadwell's version departed in a wretched manner from the true Shakespearian lines, and several of Purcell's songs have therefore a spurious text. Of the "Macbeth" music, attributed to Purcell, we shall speak in the final chapter of this work.

We venture to turn aside from our Shakespearian investigation for an instant, to defend the memory of the first musician who adequately transmuted Shakespeare's words into tones. Purcell is accused of dying of a disease brought on by a drunken orgie; this would mean a very acute and feverish malady. A simple statement will set this accusation at rest: Purcell composed music during his last illness! The present writer is in possession of a composition (evidently contemporaneous) which is entitled "Rosy Bowers," and claims to be "the last song that was

'Richard Johnson, contemporaneous with Shakespeare, who set parts of "The Tempest," also deserves mention here, for chrono logical reasons, chiefly.

set by the late celebrated Mr. Henry Purcell, it being in his sickness."

Next to Purcell one must place the famous Doctor Arne, in giving a list of eminent Shakespearian composers. His setting of the musical parts of "As You Like It," in 1740, will probably never be excelled.

Stevens, Linley, Bishop, Haydn, Horn, and numerous others might be mentioned in connection with the lyrical field of Shakespeare, but besides these there was a still wider sphere of composition instigated by the poet, as will be seen in the final chapter of this volume.