duet for Rosalind and Celia, "Whilst inconstant fortune smiled," words freely adapted from The Passionate Pilgrim. There is nothing much to say about it: it seems quite innocuous, but very dull. Rosalind's song, which she sings after having fallen in love with Orlando, is a setting of the 148th Sonnet, minus the two last lines. It is again quite dull. Celia has a long and depressing aria in praise of friendship, the words taken from the 123rd Sonnet. After these numbers it is quite refreshing to come across a cheerful male-voice hunting glee—"Even as the sun" is the title—the words being taken from Venus and Adonis. There are the usual horn effects, fortissimo chorus effects, and pianissimo echoes, all the old tricks, but put together by a good old hand, Bishop. Dr Arne's setting of "Under the greenwood tree" follows for Amiens, and a beautiful setting it is. Touchstone, in this version, is a tenor (somehow I never fancied him as a tenor), and sings a bright little song, "Fair was my love," from The Passionate Pilgrim. This is followed by a trio for Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone, beginning "Crabbed age and youth," the words again taken from The Passionate Pilgrim (what a useful poem it is to pasticcio opera composers!). This trio is a very simple one. The first verse consists of alternate phrases by the three singers, who then all sing together, over and over again, the line "For methinks thou stay'st too long." A welcome relief is Dr Arne's broad, flowing setting of "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," by far the best to these words. The next number is a terrible setting by Bishop of the first eight lines of the 7th Sonnet, "Low in the Orient when the gracious light," for male voices. Silvius now has a sentimental song to words taken, slightly altered, from Venus and Adonis. The situation is inverted: Silvius sings Venus's words reproaching Adonis, to Phoebe; but Bishop is undaunted, and "Oh thou obdurate flint, hard as steel" is addressed to a woman! (By the way, Shakespeare wrote "Art," not "Oh.") Rosalind sings a sentimental ballad to the words from Venus and Adonis beginning "If love had lent you twenty thousand tongues," of no great importance. Dr Arne's beautiful setting of "When daisies pied," from Love's Labour's Lost, is another welcome relief, and I remember in several modern revivals of this play managers introducing this song when they had a Rosalind able to sing well enough. The next number is a march and dance for the procession of Hymen, and is for orchestra only. It is a good example of absolutely straight writing, with no bother about the romance or mystery of the masque of Hymen—a good workaday march in D major and common time. This is followed by the last number, words actually from As You Like It. Hymen, who in the original production was played by a boy, sings "Then is there mirth in heaven," a long, tedious, florid song, full of endless repetitions of single words. It is a curious fact that the beautiful lyric, "It was a lover and his lass," does not occur in this version, though really part of the original play.

It was a great pity that Sir George Alexander did not commission Edward German to write the whole of his music for the As You Like It revival at the St James's, instead of the Masque only. This Masque is so very good that one would like to have an overture and full entr'actes, but one must be thankful for what one has got. The work is in four movements. First, an introduction, very quiet and moderately slow, leading to the "Woodland Dance" in the minor, beginning very quietly, but working up to twelve ff bars in the middle, and then dying away. The second number is a very graceful "Children's Dance," piano throughout, most melodious, and very delicately scored. The last number, "Rustic Dance," is the longest and most important. It begins allegro con spirito and fortissimo, and keeps it up till the first episode, which is in the same time, but pianissimo and in the minor. Soon this is worked up to a big forte rallentando effect, which leads into the last theme, pianissimo to begin with, getting quicker and quicker and more crescendo to the coda, which is presto fortissimo. This is by far the most effective of the movements, but the "Children's Dance" is the most beautiful. Mr German's setting of "It was a lover and his lass," one of the best of this lyric, was not composed for this production.

Clarence Lucas's overture to the comedy is one of the few purely orchestral works associated with As You Like It. It begins very brightly, the first theme being a rollicking one in Old English style. This is developed until we come to the second subject, which is much slower, and is first played on the clarinet. The whole overture is really in valse time, and the second half of the second theme makes a most interesting syncopated valse. The first half ends with a horn passage, suggesting the banished Duke and his friends hunting. There are no new themes. Those which I have described are taken through their phases in various keys, and the work comes to a sparkling finish by means of a presto coda. It is a very lively comedy overture, and not at all difficult to perform.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

I must just copy the whole of the title-page of Sir Henry Bishop's operatic version of The Comedy of Errors. Nothing could give any idea of what Shakespeare has been through save an analysis of the music that follows, but I can only touch on that. "The overture, songs, two duets, and glees in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden; the words selected entirely from Shakespeare's Plays, Poems, and Sonnets. The music composed and the whole adapted and compressed from the score for the voice and pianoforte by Sir Henry R. Bishop, Composer and Director of the Music to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden."

I have written this down just as it was printed. I was so overwhelmed by it that I felt sure that neither I nor anyone else could improve upon it. I knew there was only one bit of the play set to music—and not a very beautiful example either—in the ordinary anthologies of Shakespeare's music. It is by Dr Kemp, who died in 1824. He chose these few lines from Act ii., Scene 2, lines 187-191, but Bishop, very wisely, does not touch these lines. He brings in every kind of song and tune, from, as he puts it, "Shakespeare's Plays, Poems, and Sonnets," with no reference to the play for which he was composing music. The overture is of the "potpourri" style. After four bars of slow music the theme of Ophelia's song in Hamlet, "How shall I my true love know?", is played. A few bars afterwards a theme from The Tempest, then a very cheerful subject from Macbeth, followed by a bright little thing from The Winter's Tale. Then comes an old tune for "When that I was" (Twelfth Night); next a melody from The Tempest and "St Valentine's Day" lead pleasantly into the catch, "Which is the properest day to drink," from Twelfth Night, all preparing the way for "Under the greenwood tree" (As You Like It). After this theme is given a fair chance, a subject from The Winter's Tale is produced, followed by "Blow, blow," from As You Like It. A sad little bit from Macbeth, succeeded by a very bright coda from The Winter's Tale, brings the overture to a conclusion. But why call it the "Overture to The Comedy of Errors"? There is not a suggestion or a line in this overture, except the one on the title-page, that has anything to do with the play to which that is supposed to be the opening, though it is