more sought. At first Mr. Crummles would be content with a few simple
things, but later, finding these "a draw," he would rely more on
Purcell's aid. This is pure speculation, but it is fact that the earlier
plays embellished by Purcell have nothing like the quantity of music we
find in the later ones. One venturesome biographer, by the way, not only
insists on Purcell's authorship of the _Macbeth_ music, but suggests
that "probably the recognition of the excellence and effectiveness" of
such dull stuff "induced the managers of theatres to give him further
employment." They were certainly a long time about it, for Lee's
_Theodosius_, the first play for which Purcell is known to have composed
incidental music, was not produced till 1680, eight years after the
latest possible date of the _Macbeth_ music; and, apart from _Dido_,
which is not a play, but an opera, it was eighteen years till these same
astute managers were "induced" by "the excellence and effectiveness" of
the _Macbeth_ or any other music to give Purcell something serious to do
in the theatre. It was in 1690 that _Dioclesian_ appeared, the first and
one of the most important of a long string of works for the stage. The
hypotheses, the "wild surmises" and the daring defiance of mere facts
indulged in by biographers are indeed wonderful, as they strive and
strain to read and to fill in the nearly obliterated, dim and distant
record of Purcell's life. Yet it is risky for a biographer to laugh;
perhaps it is utterly wrong to conjecture that towards the end of his
life Purcell had become indispensable, and was engaged to supply the
music for _all_ the plays as they were given, big or little, as they
came along. Nor do we know how much more music may have been written for
the first plays, nor how much of what has been preserved is genuine
Purcell.

On one point we may be quite certain. It is the greatest pity that
Purcell wasted so much time on these Restoration shows. When the English