y effect without scenery, costume, and some explanation in the
way of dialogue. In _King Arthur_ there are instrumental numbers to
accompany action on the stage: without that action these numbers are
meaningless. _King Arthur_ was given at Birmingham some years ago, but
it proved to be even more incoherent than the festival cantatas which
our composers write to order: if the masque from _Timon_ or _Dioclesian_
had been inserted, few would have noticed the interpolation.

_Dido and Aeneas_ is a different matter. It was very well performed by
students some years since, and there is no reason why such an opera
company as the Moody-Manners should not devote half an evening to it
now and then. It is not long; excepting the solo parts, it is not
difficult; it is entrancingly beautiful; properly staged, the dances of
witches, etc., are fantastic and full of interest. For two hundred years
every musician has admired Dido's lament, "When I am laid in Earth"; and
indeed it is one of the most poignantly sorrowful and exquisitely
beautiful songs ever composed. There are plenty of rollicking tunes,
too, and the dance-pieces--_with the dancers_--are exhilarating and
admirable for their purpose. The musicianship is as masterly as Purcell
ever displayed. If Purcell composed the work before he was twenty-two he
worked a miracle; and even if the date is ten years later it stands as a
wonderful achievement. If we ask why he did not produce more real
operas, there can be only one answer: the town did not care for them.
The town went crazy over spectacular shows; even Dryden yielded to the
town's taste; and there is no sign that Purcell cherished any particular
private passion for opera as opera. He did his best for his paymaster.
If there is no evidence hinting at his despising posterity, like Charles
Lamb, or at any determination, also like Lamb, to write for antiquity,
there is in his anthems and odes very considerable evidence that he was
ready to write what his paymaster wanted written. We must bear in mind
that downright bad taste, such as our present-day taste for such
artistic infamies as the "Girls of This" and the "Belles of That," had
not come into existence in Purcell's time. Purcell's contemporaries
preferred his music to all other for the same reason that we prefer it
to all other of his time--it was the best.

_Dido_, in pianoforte score, is generally accessible; only a few of the
spoken play sets are as yet published, and th