Properly played, no music is more
delightful.
CHAPTER V
It is impossible to touch on more than a few characteristic examples of
Purcell's achievement. There are many charming detached songs; the
_Harpsichord Lessons_ contain exquisite things. There is also a quantity
of unpublished sacred and secular music of high value.
When Purcell died, on November 21, 1695, he was busy with the music for
Tom d'Urfey's _Don Quixote_ (part iii.), being helped by one Eccles, who
enjoyed a certain mild fame in his day. The last song, "set in his
sicknesse," was a song supposed to be sung by a mad woman, "From rosy
bowers." The recitative is magnificent; two of the sections in tempo are
fine, especially the second; the last portion is meant to depict raving
lunacy, and does so. It is by no means one of Purcell's greatest
efforts, and he apparently had no notion of making a dramatic exit from
this world. If the doctors knew what disease killed him, they never
told. The professional libeller of the dead, Hawkins, speaks of
dissipations and late hours: and he would have us believe that he left
his family in poverty. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
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