SIR,

IN consequence of a low puff, in the form of an advertisement, having appeared in several papers, relative to the song of ‘The Old English Gentleman,’ I have presumed to ask the favour of your contradicting the assertion made through that medium, which is entirely false from beginning to end, indeed almost too contemptible to notice, and should have been passed in silence, but that I think such manœuvres ought to be exposed. It is a fact, that the very man who issued the article in question has been himself prevented from publishing the copy of which he so unjustifiably possessed himself, and of which he accused me of having robbed him!

However, to avoid all further contention, I have rewritten and re-set the song, and thus, in future, mean to sing it. This is not the first attack made upon me by the same person, who pirated the ballad of The Maid of Llammelyn when in its height of popularity, and issued circulars and advertisements to say that the song bearing my name was not the popular ballad—a declaration as false as the present.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.
H. PHILLIPS.

Hart Street, Bloomsbury Square.

REVIEW OF NEW MUSIC.

  1. NOVELLO’s MASSES for Four Voices, with an Accompaniment for the Organ or Piano-forte. No. 1. (J. A. Novello.)
  2. A COLLECTION OF SACRED MUSIC, adapted to the Hymns of BURDER and DR. WATTS, with an Accompaniment for the Organ or Piano-forte, composed by WILLIAM ATTER. (Goulding and D’Almaine.)

MR. NOVELLO, it appears, is republishing his Masses, of which the above is the first number of a second edition. Not being a new work, we must be governed by our rule, and speak of it generally only, though it would have been very agreeable to us to enter particularly into its merits; for it does not very often fall to our lot to be called upon to notice a composition, the examination of which is attended with so much satisfaction as the present has afforded.

We have always been of opinion, and see no reason to depart from it now, that in the Masses of the last hundred years—we might have extended the term—there is far too much levity, the solemnity of the subject being fairly considered; no small part whereof arises out of the accompaniments, which are frequently those of as opera air, and excite nothing but secular, not to say ludicrous ideas. Nay, to the very singers, who are pronouncing the sacred words, melodies are often given which would be well received in the ball-room as dance-tunes; and passages in them, strictly the same both in air and movement, may readily be found in quadrilles and gallopades. If Erasmus, more than three hundred years ago, complained of the lightness of the church-music of his time,—if Salvator Rosa, himself a composer, could not restrain his indignation at the profane melodies to which sacred words were set in the middle of the seventeenth century—in what language would these have uttered their invectives could they have heard some of the compositions of the last age,—some of Haydn’s Masses?