"Nor were his Beauties to his Art confin'd
So justly were his Soul and Body join'd
You'd think his Form the Product of his Mind.
A conquering sweetness in his Visage dwelt,
His Eyes would warm, his Wit like lightning melt.
But those must no more be seen, and that no more be felt.
Pride was the sole aversion of his Eye,
Himself as Humble as his Art was High."

Purcell died at the age of thirty-seven--being granted only two years
more of life than Mozart and only six years more than Schubert. He is
the moon of English music and his melodies are as exquisite and as
silvery and as full of enamoured radiance as the tintinnabulations of
the moonbeams themselves. But unfortunately for English music this
beautiful moon, who is the most nearly great of all the composers
England has furnished the world, was speedily obscured in the blinding
glare of the sun of English music which came shouldering up from the
east, and which has not yet sunk far enough in the west to cease from
dazzling the eyes of English music-makers. But of Händel as a lover, we
must postpone the gossip till we have mouthed one of the most delicious
morsels in musical scandal, a choice romance that is said to have
affected Purcell very deeply.

The story concerns the strenuous career of Alessandro Stradella, and
when you read it you will not wonder that it should have made a great
success as an opera, or that it gave Flotow his greatest popularity next
to "Martha," even though its conclusion was made tamely theatrical.