objects. But, remembering the gusto with which he sets descriptive
words, using these phrases consciously with a picturesque purpose, it
is hard to accept this view. In all likelihood he was constituted
similarly to Weber, who, his son asserts, curiously converted the
lines and colours of trees and winding roads and all objects of nature
into thematic material (there is an anecdote--apparently, for a
wonder, a true one--that shows he took the idea of a march from a heap
of chairs stacked upside down in a beer-garden during a shower of
rain). But Purcell is infinitely simpler, less fevered, than Weber.
Sometimes his melodies have the long-drawn, frail delicacy, the
splendidly ordered irregularity of a trailing creeper, and something
of its endless variety of leaf clustering round a central stem. But
there is an entire absence of tropical luxuriance. A grave simplicity
prevails, and we find no jewellery; showing Purcell to have been a
supreme artist.


V.

So far I have spoken of his music generally, and now I come to deal
(briefly, for my space is far spent) with the orchestral, choral, and
chamber music and songs; and first with the choral music. I begin to
fear that by insisting so strongly on the distinctive sweetness of
Purcell's melody, I may have given a partially or totally wrong
impression. Let me say at once, therefore, that delicate as he often
was, and sweet as he was more often, although he could write melodies
which are mere iridescent filaments of tone, he never became flabby
or other than crisp, and could, and did, write themes as flexible,
sinewy, unbreakable as perfectly tempered steel bands. And these
themes he could lay together and weld into choruses of gigantic