part of every collection of church music. Canons and fugues were the
favourite modes of that early period; vain substitutes for melody,
rhythm, and correct accentuation, in which particulars music was then
greatly deficient. The merits of the compositions of the Elizabethan
age, vaunted by the lovers of antiquity as the golden age of English
music, are thus summed up by Dr Burney: "It is, therefore, upon the
church music, madrigals, and songs in parts, of our countrymen during
the reign of Elizabeth, that we must rest their reputation; and these,
in point of harmony and contrivance, the chief excellencies of such
compositions, appear in nothing inferior to those of the best
contemporary compositions of the Continent. Taste, rhythm, accent, and
grace, must not be sought for in this kind of music; indeed, we might as
well censure the ancient Greeks for not writing in English, as the
composers of the sixteenth century for their deficiency in these
particulars, which having then no existence, even in idea, could not be
wanted or expected; and it is necessarily the business of artists to
cultivate or refine what is in the greatest esteem among the best judges
of their own nation and times. And these, at this period, unanimously
thought every species of musical composition below criticism except
canons and fugues. Indeed, what is generally understood by taste in
music, must ever be an abomination in the church; for, as it consists of
new refinements or arrangements of notes, it would be construed into
innovation, however meritorious, unless sanctioned by age. Thus the
favourite points and passages in the madrigals of the sixteenth century,
were in the seventeenth received as orthodox in the church; and those of
the opera songs and cantatas of the seventeenth century, are used by the
gravest and most pious ecclesiastical composers of the eighteenth." Of
the skill of the performers, for whom this music, still listened to and
admired, was written, he also observes, "that the art of singing,
further than was necessary to keep a performer in tune, and time, must