The fame of our last great musician survived him for quite a
long time, as things go. That the re-issue of his works was not due
alone to the energy of his widow is clear, for she died in 1706.
It is indeed mournful to contemplate the havoc disease and death play
with the might-have-beens of men and of causes. Pelham Humphries, an
unmistakable genius, was carried away at twenty-seven; Henry Purcell,
one of the mightiest of the world's masters of music, died at the age of
thirty-seven, only two years older than his peer in genius, Mozart. Yet
he left a glorious record, and his days must have been glorious. Men
like Purcell do not create music such as theirs by blind instinct, as a
cat catches mice. A mighty brain and mightier heart must have worked
with passionate energy, the fires must have burnt at an unbroken white
heat, to produce so much unsurpassable music in so short a time. The
qualities we find in the music were in him before they got into the
music; all that we can enjoy he enjoyed first. He had, too, a high
destiny to work out, and he knew it. Thomas Tudway said he was ambitious
to exceed everyone of his time.
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