By 1680 Purcell's apprenticeship was at end. Early compositions by him
had been published in Playford's "Choice Ayres" in 1676 and 1679; in
1677 he had been appointed "composer (to the King) in ordinary for the
violin, in the place of Matthew Lock, deceased"; but none of the highest
official posts were his. And we must remember that official position was
a very different thing in Restoration times from what it is to-day.
Nowadays the world is bigger and more thickly populated, and men of
intellect and genius scorn Court appointments and official appointments
generally. These are picked up by Court toadies, business-headed
persons, men belonging to well-connected families--the Tite Barnacles of
the generation. The men of power appeal to the vast public direct. In
Purcell's day there was no vast public to appeal to. Concerts had
scarcely been devised; no composer could live by publishing his works.
The Court, the theatre, the Church--he had to win a position in one or
other or all of these if he wished to live at all. So in 1680 Purcell
the master passed over the head of his teacher, Dr. John Blow, to the
organistship of Westminster Abbey--that is, he was recognised as the
first organist living. In the same year he composed the first theatre
pieces he is known to have composed--those for Lee's _Theodosius_. (I
disregard as fatuous the supposition that in his boyhood he wrote the
_Macbeth_ music attributed, perhaps wrongly, to Locke.) It was not for
some time that he gained the supremacy at the theatre which he now held
in the Church. That very trustworthy weathercock John Dryden, Poet
Laureate, continued to flatter others for many long days to come. In
this same year he composed the first of a long series of odes of
welcome, congratulation or condolence for royal or great personages, and
about this year he married.