92 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[2nd s. NO 109., Jan. 80. '58. 



and sailors landing, one of which [sic] sings a song, the 

 Chorus of which is — 



* Rule Britannia, rule the Waves, 

 Britons never will be Slaves.' " 



You may observe here that the reviewer of the 

 London Magazine in 1751 (such persons are gene- 

 rally well informed) apparently speaks of " Rule 

 Britannia " as a thing perfectly new to him. In 

 f\ict, so far as I know, " Rule Britannia," however 

 "celebrated" in 1745, does not appear printed 

 with authentic date before 1751 in any of the col- 

 lections of Musical Miscellanies, which are full of 

 productions of Arne ; for besides his greater works, 

 he composed numberless Songs, Airs, and Dia- 

 logues. The celebrated Ode is not even in the first 

 publication of Alfred by Walsh, which is not an- 

 terior to 1756! 



All this is singular enough, and calls for further 

 researches by Mr. Husk, the discerning author of 

 Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia s Day. Never- 

 theless, I am ready to allow that the advertise- 

 ment of 1745 quoted by him is applicable to the 

 song which has become national, and that it was 

 composed in 1740. But Arne will gain nothing 

 by that : he will not be any the more than he was 

 before the genuine composer of this fine piece of 

 music. 



Mr. Hdsk sums up his answer thus : — "I hope 

 I have shown enough to settle the question as 

 between Arne and Handel of who composed ' Rule 

 Britannia.' " Indeed he has not shown enough. 

 Even should the two phrases that he has contested 

 not be by Handel, it will always remain granted 

 that the whole of the famous chorus " Rule Bri- 

 tannia " is taken, as I have proved it, from Gius- 

 tino, an opera of Handel's, performed in 1737. 

 This not being contradicted by Mr. Husk, I pro- 

 ceed to the two phrases under discussion. When, 

 enlightened by musical friends, I said they were 

 borrowed from the Occasional Oratorio, I could 

 have mentioned other works of Handel — for 

 these phrases are some of those favourite ideas 

 that all composers have, and are fond of repeating. 

 Open the score of Saul, and in Mirab's song, " See 

 with what a scornful air," you will recognise the 

 very introduction of Arne's Ode : — 



" She the precious gift receives." 



" When Britain first at Ileav'n's command." 



The first bar and the beginning of the second 

 are to be found again, with a change of metre, in 

 the air of Acis, " Love sounds the alarm." 



Now as to the second phrase, I said in my book, 

 " It is not uncommon in Handel ; we find it more 

 or less accentuated in his earlier works ; and in 

 reality it may be traced in Alcina, Ariadne, Ata- 

 lanta, and V Allegro, and all these works are prior 

 to 1 740. I will cite as a single example Alcina. 

 la the air, " Sta, nell' Ircana selva," we have, — 

 " Parteo attende il cacciator." 

 " Arose, arose from out the azure main.' ' 



So, ^he first phrase of the ode composed by Arne 

 in 1740 is clearly borrowed from Said, performed 

 January 16, 1739, the second from Alcina per- 

 formed April 16, 1735, the third and fourth from 

 Giiistino, performed February 16th, 1737. 



The gifted librarian of the Sacred Harmonic 

 Society is mistaken when he says : " The claim 

 of our countryman Arne to the composition of 

 ' Rule Britannia' was hitherto undisputed." It 

 is now seventy years ago since Burney disputed 

 the claim most emphatically twice. In the fourth 

 volume oi A general Histoi-y of Music, p. 405., he 

 says : — 



" Conti sung the first air of Justin ' Un vostro sguardo, 

 which is very pleasant. The first close in this air was 

 soon copied by Arne in his popular song of ' Kule Bri- 

 tannia ' in Alfred." 



And at page 453., 



" We see the model of all the best songs of our com- 

 posers in looking back to Handel and his successors. 

 Page 25. of the songs printed by Walsh, we find in ' Cede 

 alia sorte' the idea and almost all the passages of Arne's 

 ' When Britain first.' " 



These words " our countryman " employed by 

 Mr. Husk opens to me a new point of view in 

 the discussion which had hitherto escaped me. 

 It seems that he makes this a sort of patriotic 

 question. I declare in all sincerity I had not the 

 least desire to strip an Englishman of the glory 

 of having composed the English national song. In 

 yjv'i^mg the. Life of Handel, I was informed that 

 this song was derived from his works, and I said 

 it candidly as a mere fact : nothing more. I was 

 actuated in doing so by the same feeling which 

 induced me to state that the magnificent Anthem, 

 " God Save the King," was by an old English 

 composer, John Bull, and not either by Handel 

 or LuUi, as has been pretty often stated. 



Arne was open-hearted and of a liberal mind. 

 He knew, liked, and admired Handel. The musio 

 of the great old Saxon was most familiar to him, 

 not only because he made a study of it, but be- 

 cause he heai'd It constantly sung at home by his 

 wife, formerly Miss Cecilia Young, who performed 

 for Handel from 1736, during more than ten years 

 consecutively. It may be explained thus, that 

 without deliberate intention he employed some 

 subjects of his. A composer who has given such 

 proofs of an abundant fount of invention as 

 Arne cannot be accused of pilfering. I could 

 not, and did not wish to depreciate him, for I con- 

 sider him a distinguished musician, a genuine 

 artiste, to whom his own country scarcely does 

 justice ; and I do not say this for the first time, 

 on account of this discussion : I have said it be- 

 fore in my book, pages 300. and 407. 



V. SCHCELCHEK. 



