18th. I lately rejoiced, but it seems very prematurely, on hearing that the former excellent president of the Madrigal Society, Sir John Rogers, Bart., had met with so fit and proper a successor as his friend, William Linley, Esq. I now learn that Mr. Linley was elected; but, finding that there had been some informality in the proceeding, he requested to have the ceremony repeated at the next meeting: when, lo! it was proposed and carried, that the president in future should be ephemeral,—that he should be inaugurated at five and abdicate at nine—so that each day should bring with it a new ruler, and that each member should sway the sceptre in turn, whether qualified or not for the duties of the office; a measure which, I humbly conjecture, will sometimes place the symbol of power in hands not very well prepared to hold it. Some of the oldest and best members of the society thought that so able a composer as Mr. Linley,—the son of the author of ‘Let me careless,’—a gentleman in education, station, and fortune—would be a likely person to give efficiency to the chair: the majority at one meeting thought otherwise; and I fear that this ancient, this useful, and agreeable association will suffer by what I cannot but think a hasty, injudicious decision.
26th. A noble master in chancery, who has proposed a mode of reforming the church establishment, is for leaving the incomes of the bishops much as they are, bettering them in some cases, but proposes to abolish at once the cathedral service, and, consequently, to send adrift vicars-choral, lay-clerks, organists, and all appertaining to the musical establishment of our ancient seats of episcopacy. This has produced the following letter to the Times of to-day, and the accompanying copy of verses:—
SIR,
Having heard some rumours respecting the strange and awful visitation under which Lord H-nl-y has for some time past been suffering, in consequence of his declared hostility to anthems, solos, duets, &c., I took the liberty of making inquiries at his lordship’s house this morning, and lose no time in transmitting to you such particulars as I could collect. It is said that the screams of his lordship, under the operation of this nightly concert (which is, we doubt, some trick of the radicals), may be heard all over the neighbourhood. The female who personates St. Cecilia is supposed to be the same that, last year, appeared in the character of Isis, at the Rotunda. How the cherubs are managed I have not yet ascertained.
Yours, &c.
P. P.
LORD H-NL-Y AND ST. CECILIA.
—— in Metii descendat judicis aures.—Horat.