l the composers until
Beethoven do seem--a trifle light and insignificant after the almost
tragic seriousness of the largo, we must bear in mind that it was very
frequently part of Purcell's design to have a cheerful ending.
Unfortunately, there is no good edition of the sonatas. They are chamber
music, and never were intended to be played in a large room. They should
be played in a small room, and the pianist--for harpsichords are
woefully scarce to-day--should fill in his part from the figured bars
simply with moving figurations, neither plumping down thunderous chords
nor (as one editor lately proposed) indulging in dazzling show passages
modelled on Moscheles and Thalberg. 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of unpublished sacred and secular music of high value.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. 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