master of the theory as well as of the practice of composition. He loved
these discords, and deliberately wrote them; he could have justified
them, and there is hardly one that we cannot justify. Purcell could
write intricate fugues and canons without any "harsh progressions"; that
he liked these for their own sake is obvious in numberless pieces where
no laws of counterpoint compelled him to write this note rather than
that. And though in the eyes of the theorists they are harsh, in the
ears of all men they are sweet. The works of Purcell and of Mozart are
the sweetest music ever composed, yet both composers filled their music
with discords--"that give delight and hurt not."

In 1691 Purcell and Dryden did _King Arthur_ together. The poet had by
this time forsaken Monsieur Grabut, who had in his eyes at one time
stood for all that was commendable in music. Grabut was more ingenious
as a business man than as a musician, but not all his ingenuity served
to prevent the English discovering that he could not write pleasing
tunes and that Purcell could.[1] Whether Dryden felt any difference
whatever between good and bad music I cannot say: he may have been like
many of the poets, music-deaf (analogous to colour-blind). They are said
to have been good friends, which I can well believe; and Dryden, when
pursued by duns and men with writs and such implements of torture, is
said to have stowed himself secretly in Purcell's room in the
clock-tower of St. James's Palace, which one may believe or not,
according to the mood of the moment. Anyhow, he seems to have been happy
to work with Purcell, and for the spectacles in _King Arthur_ they laid
their two heads together and arranged some dazzling things which no one
would care to see nowadays. _King Arthur_ is almost as brilliant as
_Dioclesian_, and contains some exceedingly patriotic songs. The stage
in England always threatens most bloodshed to England's foes when those
foes might seem to an impartial observer to be having the better of it.