much in Purcell's fashion, and added to that same stock from which
Handel and Bach and every subsequent composer drew, each adding
something of his own.

It was not by accident that Purcell, with this astonishing fertility
of picturesque phrases, should also have written so much, and such
vividly coloured picturesque pieces--pieces, I mean, descriptive of
the picturesque. Of course, to write an imitative phrase is quite
another matter from writing a successful piece of descriptive music.
But in Purcell the same faculty enabled him to do both. No poet of
that time seems to have been enamoured of hedgerows and flowers and
fields, nor can I say with certitude that Purcell was. Yet in
imagination at least he loves to dwell amongst them; and not the
country alone, the thought of the sea also, stirs him deeply. There
need only be some mention of sunshine or rain among the leaves, green
trees, or wind-swept grass, the yellow sea-beach or the vast
sea-depths, and his imagination flames and flares. His best music was
written when he was appealed to throughout a long work--as "The
Tempest"--in this manner. Hence, it seems to me, that quality which
his music, above any other music in the world, possesses: a peculiar
sweetness, not a boudoir sweetness like Chopin's sweetness, nor a
sweetness corrected, like Chopin's, by a subtle strain of poisonous
acid or sub-acid quality, but the sweet and wholesome cleanliness of
the open air and fields, the freshness of sun showers and cool morning
winds. I am not exaggerating the importance of this element in his
music. It is perpetually present, so that at last one comes to think,
as I have been compelled to think this long time, that Purcell wrote
nothing but descriptive music all his life. Of course it may be that
the special formation of his melodies misleads one sometimes, and that
Purcell in inventing them often did not dream of depicting natural