Purcell was left quite
well off, and was able to give her son Edward a good education. She had
also property to bequeath when she died in 1706. Purcell worked so hard
that he cannot have had time for the life of tavern-rioting that Hawkins
invented. All we know is that he died, and that his death was a tragic
loss to England. A few days later he was buried in Westminster Abbey, to
the sound of his own most solemn music. A tablet to his memory was
placed near the grave, and the inscription on it is said to have been
written by the wife of Sir Robert Howard, author of the _Indian Queen_
and other forgotten master-works. The light of English music had gone
out, though few at the moment realised it, for Dr. Blow and Eccles and
others went on composing music which was thought very good. But the
light had gone, and it was not Handel who extinguished it. Handel did
not come to England for fifteen years, and during that fifteen years not
a single composition worthy of being placed within measurable distance
of Purcell's average work fell from an English pen. Purcell was by no
means forgotten all at once. The four-part sonatas were issued in 1697,
the _Harpsichord Lessons_ in 1696; the _Choice Ayres for the
Theatre_--selections from the stage music--came out in 1697; the first
book of the _Orpheus Britannicus_ appeared in 1698, and a second edition
of it in 1706; the second book of the same appeared in 1702, and a
second edition in 1711; while a third edition of both books was
published as late as 1721, when Handel had been settled in England some
years.
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