1861.] in reference to Music. 319 



Instances were given to prove to how many different uses the same 

 tune might be turned. The first union of poetry with regular music, 

 with which it is expedient to deal, is to be found in the works of the 

 Elizabethan madrigalists. Here the music ii better than the poetr3^ 

 The latter is too euphuistic ; but with this character of conceit and 

 quaintness the music also may be charged. Allowing for effects, 

 inevitable to the intricate style of composition, the English madrigals 

 are as tunable and sonorous as the Italian madrigals of the same 

 period. 



Shakspeare's lyrics are models of words for music, complete in 

 themselves; and, when musically read by a speaker of refinement 

 (Mrs. Fanny Kemble instanced), entirely contenting the ear ; — yet lend- 

 ing themselves, without the slightest loss of freedom or sense of incum- 

 brance, to a clothing as exquisite and ingenious as that given by 

 Mendelssohn to the " Midsummer Night's Dream." — Milton's poetry 

 is no less admirable in this respect ; more symmetrical even, perhaps, 

 than Shakspeare's, owing to Milton's musical training — and furnishing, 

 as in "Comus," "Samson Agonistes," and " L'Allegro," a more 

 continuous text. Thus Milton's verse was sought as text by two 

 of the greatest foreign musicians — Handel and Haydn. Ben Jonson's 

 lyrics, though excellent, full of rare fantasy and largely sought by 

 English musicians, are less eligible than those of Milton and Shak- 

 speare, from their being more far-fetched in meaning and imagery. 

 Some of them, however, set by Horsley, are among the best specimens 

 of English music that we possess. — Cowley was touched on as having 

 given to music some verses of rare sweetness. — Dryden, at a time of 

 decadence and tawdry taste, wrote notably for music ; some of his 

 stage lyrics, as set by Purcell, are full of animation and colour ; and 

 his " Alexander's Feast," set a second time by Handel, is the finest 

 ode for music in honour of St. Cecilia existing ; and Handel's setting 

 of it, the best Cantata ever written. — Congreve, Gay, Carey, all wrote 

 well for the musician ; though, after Purcell 's date, while the art of 

 music was enriching itself, and taking new forms abroad, its nationality 

 was on the decline at home, owing to the overwhelming splendour of 

 foreign talents, and the disrespect into which it had fallen among the 

 wits of the eighteenth century. Yet, even at that time, when poetry 

 was more didactic and satirical, and later, when the Johnsonian in- 

 fluences prevailed, the book of English poetry was never without its 

 good inspirations for the refined musician. Gray an^ Mason contri- 

 buted — Cowper even tried his hand. — The canzonets set by Jackson, 

 of Exeter, were instanced as bearing comparison with those of any 

 other country. 



Among the poets flourishing at the close of the last and the com- 

 mencement of the present century. Burns was passed with a word ; 

 since of his tunefulness there had never been any question at home 

 or abroad. — Coleridge, though among the most* richly musical of 

 poets, is not therefore a good poet for the musician's use ; his verse 

 being too mellifluous, too thproughly charged with sweetness of its own, 



