ENGLISH MUSIC.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 23, 18 May 1876, Page 2

ENGLISH MUSIC.

[fucoi enharmonia.] " Bule, Britannia," lias been happily caiied "The Marseillaise" of ~ England." The music was written by Dr. Arne, for the masque of Alfred, and per termed for the first time on August 15th, 1740,-in commemoration of the accession of George I. and of Princess Augusta's birthday. , The words of Alfred were the joint production of James Thomson (author of " The Seasons ") and Mallet ; but Thomson wrote "Ilnle, Britannia." The iriecei at once became popular, and was soon sung everywhere. It has been..said that the melody is stolen from Handel ; but the charge seems to have as much in it as such charges usually have, indeed, some pains were taken to prove its unfounded character. A correspondence on the subject took place in " Kotes and Queries." The editor told his correspondent that "without doubt Handel, in the song "War shall Cease," introduced the first phrase of Dr. Arne's tunc to please thu people, and to show what he could do with it." • Another correspondent showed that the phrase was neither Arne's nor Handel's, as somebody else had used it twenty years before. Others .proved various facts—such as, that Dr. Arne did not write this particular air ; that lie did ; that " Bule, Britannia," was'publicly performed a year before Handel's air was written ; that Handel undoubtedly wrote his air long before he published it; and so on, until one wiser than them aH* stepped in with the proposition that " the*

right of property in a fine air is not a question of parallel passages at all. It is a question of'-improving the passages themselves, and then of combining them into a more beautiful, and consequently • more enduring, form than they had ever before received." In explanation of the wonderful and lasting popularity of the song, we may note that the words embody that love of naval supremacy which is a part of English patriotism. "It will be the political hymn of the country as long as she maintains-her political power," said Soutliey. The noble tune has retained the popularity it at once acquired, and will carry it down the stream of time, as it has borne it across the broad ocean to wherever Englishmen inhabit, as one of our characteristic melodies. A strange corruption lias crept into the text of the refrain. It should be, "Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves." Why this has been perverted into " Britannia rules the waves," and so printed in many of our best collections of English songs, it is hard to tell; the sense of the line is against it, and assuredly not to b#found in, the original edition of the song. '' The Girl I've left behind me." Th is rattling, most emphatic tune is known by \ everybody. Of our old English airs there is none which maintains a more universal popularity. The boys in Whitechapel may be heard whistling the air any day, like their great grandfathers before them. The date of the song is" fixed at 1758, by helj) *- ne reference to " Brighton Camp," which was formed at that time in expectation of a French invasion. It has been played for at least seventy years, as a loth-to-depart when a man-o'-war- weighs anchor, and when a regiment quits the town where it lias been quartered. The custom has become so universal that any omission to perform it would be regarded as a slight upon the ladies of the place. The music glides along easily, there is a melodic smoothness, and genuine "ring in which is often found wanting in our more elaborate and over-ornamented modern airs.