talks of Purcell setting "my three songs," and there are only half a
dozen "curtain-tunes," _i.e._ entr'actes. Many of the harpsichord
pieces are of tiny proportions. The sonatas of three and four parts
are no larger than Mozart's piano sonatas. Still, taking into account
the noble quality that is constantly maintained, we must admit that
Purcell used astonishingly the short time he was given. Much of his
music is lost; more of it lies in manuscript at the British Museum and
elsewhere. Some of it was issued last century, some early in this.
Four expensive volumes have been wretchedly edited and issued by the
Purcell Society, and those amongst us who live to the age of
Methuselah will probably see all the accessible works printed by this
body. Some half century ago Messrs. Novello published an edition of
the church music, stupidly edited by the stupidest editor who ever
laid clumsy fingers on a masterpiece. A shameful edition of the "King
Arthur" music was prepared for the Birmingham Festival of 1897 by Mr.
J.A. Fuller-Maitland, musical critic of "The Times." A publisher
far-sighted and generous enough to issue a trustworthy edition of all
Purcell's music at a moderate price has yet to be found.

Purcell's list is not long, but it is superb. Yet he opened out no new
paths, he made no leap aside from the paths of his predecessors, as
Gluck did in the eighteenth century and Wagner in the nineteenth. He
was one of their school; he went on in the direction they had led; but
the distance he travelled was enormous. Humphries, possibly Captain
Cook, even Christopher Gibbons, helped to open out the new way in
church music; Lawes, Matthew Lock, and Banister were before him at the
theatres; Lock and Dr. Blow had written odes before he was weaned; the
form and plan of his sonatas came certainly from Bassani, in all
likelihood from Corelli also; from John Jenkins and the other writers
of fancies he got something of his workmanship and art of weaving many