After the
last chorus--which begins as though the gathering were a Scotch one and
we were going to have "Auld Lang Syne"--there is a final "grand dance,"
one of the composer's vigorous and elaborately worked displays on a
ground-bass.
[1] Poor Grabut's fall was most lamentable. (His name, by the way, is
spelt Grabu, or Grabut, or Grebus.) Pepys records that when "little
Pelham Humfreys" returned from France he was bent on giving "Grebus" a
lift out of his place. He most certainly did; and the case ought to be a
warning to humbugs not to set their faith in princes. He had jockeyed
competent men out of their places, and by 1674 he was himself ousted. He
sank into miserable circumstances; and by the end of 1687 was dead.
James II.--who was a much more honest paymaster than his
brother--apparently paid up all arrears the Court owed him. His
impudence must have been boundless; for he dared to measure himself not
only against thorough workmen like Banister, but even men of genius like
Humphries and Purcell. His audacity carried him in the end no further
than a debtor's prison; and had he been paid only the value of his
services, he might have died there.
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