¹ Jonathan Swift, Correspondence, ed. Ball (London, 1910), i, 142.

² John Dryden, Dedication to The Vocal and Instrumental Musick of the Prophetesse, quoted by Roswell G. Ham, “Dryden's Dedication for The Music of the Prophetesse, 1691,” PMLA, l (1935), 1070.

³ Mark Van Doren, The Poetry of John Dryden (New York, 1920), p. 73.

⁴ James Beattie, Essays on Poetry and Music, as they Affect the Mind, third edition (London, 1779), pp. 147, 149-150.

⁵ William Jackson, The Four Ages; Together with Essays on Various Subjects (London, 1798), p. 360.

⁶ John Brown, A Dissertation on the Rise, Union, and Power … of Poetry and Music (London, 1763), p. 242. Brown climaxed his remarks (p. 238) by recommending “the Institution of A Poetic and Musical Academy, for the more effectual Re-union of these two Arts, and their better Direction to their highest Ends.”

⁷ Abbé Jean Baptiste Du Bos, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting, and Music, translated by Thomas Nugent (London, 1748), i, 360.

⁸ Joseph Warton. Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (London, 1756), i, 63.

⁹ James Harris, Three Treatises (London, 1744), pp. 99-102. Harris had begun his analysis thus (pp. 95-99): “It is first to be observed, that there are various Ajfections, which may be raised by the Power of Music. There are Sounds to make us chearful, or sad; martial, or tender; and so of almost every other Affection, which we feel. It is also further observable, that there is a reciprocal Operation between our Affections, and our Ideas; so that, by a sort of natural Sympathy, certain Ideas necessarily tend to raise in us certain Affections; and those Affections, by a sort of Counter-Operation, to raise the same Ideas … It will follow, that whatever happens to be the Affection or Disposition of Mind, which ought naturally to result from the Genius of any Poem, the same probably it will be in the Power of some Species of Music to excite … The ideas therefore of Poetry must needs make the most sensible Impression, when the Affections, peculiar to them, are already excited by the Music. For here a double Force is made co-operate to one End. A Poet, thus assisted, finds not an Audience in a Temper, averse to the Genius of his Poem, or perhaps at best under a cool Indißerence; but by the Preludes, the Symphonies, and concurrent Operation of the Music in all its Parts, rouzed into those very Affections, which he would most desire. An Audience, so disposed, not only embrace with Pleasure the Ideas of the Poet, when exhibited; but, in a manner, even anticipate them in their several Imaginations … And hence the genuine Charm of Music, and the Wonders which it works, thro' its great Professors.”

¹⁰ Augustan England habitually looked to Rome, and the Horatian ode naturally became the central lyric phenomenon of a none too lyric age.

¹¹ Other notable examples are: Boyce's setting of Mason's Installation Ode (1749); Randall's setting of Gray's Installation Ode (1769); Cooke's setting of Collins' Ode on the Passions (1784); Bennett's setting of Tennyson's Ode for the Opening of the International Exhibition (1862).

¹² For a full discussion of the English ode in general, see George N. Shuster, The English Ode from Milton to Keats (New York, 1940), Note especially Chapter Six: “Ode Writers of the Augustan Age” (pp. 146-185).

¹³ Brown, op. cit., p. 239.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 238.

¹⁵ James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. Hill (New York, 1889), n, 106. Johnson's remarks on Cibber are frequent. At one point (in, 83) he refers to the following couplet “in allusion to the King and himself”:

“He abused Pindar to me,” Johnson said, “and then shewed me an Ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle's wing. I told him that when the ancients made a simile, they always made it like something real.” Similarly (iii, 209): “Colley Cibber once consulted me as to one of his birthday Odes, a long time before it was wanted. I objected very freely to several passages. Cibber lost patience, and would not read his Ode to an end.”

¹⁶ Poems, ed. Harold Williams (Oxford, 1937), 459-469. Swift's entire poem illustrates well the faults of the typical birthday ode.

¹⁷ In the same period similar celebrations were held at Oxford, where they continued till 1708 and perhaps later. For a detailed view see William Henry Husk, An Account of the Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia's Day (London, 1857).

¹⁸ Warton, op. cit., i, 53 (note).

¹⁹ Henry Purcell was given only the slenderest opportunity to display his phenomenal dramatic skill, but he covered Fishburn's dross with his own refined gold.

²⁰ John Blow's musical setting was modelled largely on Purcell's composition for the previous year.

²¹ Edmond Malone, Life of Dryden (London, 1800), I (part 1), 274 (note).

²² This doggeral was set to music by William Turner, a composer of only modest talents, who was unable to make anything of Tate's worthless materials. The music has long since perished.

²³ In his edition of The Works of John Dryden (London, 1808), x, 448, Scott declared that “Shadwell appears to have been a proficient in music” and quoted Shadwell's preface to Psyche, in which Shadwell referred to “music; in which I cannot but have some little knowledge, having been bred, for many years of my youth, to some performance in it.” Shadwell's ode was set to music by Robert King, but the score is no longer extant.

²⁴ The Gentleman's Journal (ed. Peter Motteux), January 1691/92 (first number).

²⁵ D'Urfey's ode was set to music by “that famous musician” John Blow, but only fragments of the score are now available (in Blow's Amphion Anglicus).

²⁶ Godfrey Finger, Chapel-master to James II (1685-1688), composed the music for Parsons' ode.

²⁷ The Letters of John Dryden, ed. Charles E. Ward (Durham, 1942), p. 93.

²⁸ Daniel Purcell's music for Bishop's ode has unfortunately not survived.

²⁹ Theophilus Parsons served again as poet to Cecilia in 1699; the composer and his music are unknown. Thomas D'Urfey produced in the following year a second effort, set to music by John Blow. William Congreve's ode for 1701, the most melancholy of all Cecilian odes, was accompanied by the music of John Eccles. John Hughes' offering in 1703, set to music by Philip Hart, brought the regular series of Cecilian festivals to an inglorious end.

³⁰ George Sherburn, Selections from Alexander Pope (New York, 1929), p. 390, points out the obscurity of the immediate genesis of Pope's ode and indicates the possibility that Pope was mistaken in stating that it was written in 1708.

³¹ The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. William Warburton (London, 1751), i, 117 (note).

³² The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. William Roscoe (London, 1824), iii, 233.

³³ Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men (London, 1820), p. 12.

³⁴ Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (London, 1776-1789), iii, 596.

³⁵ The Correspondence of Richard Steele, ed. Rae Blanchard (Oxford, 1941), p. 44.

³⁶ John Hughes, Poems on Several Occasions, with Some Select Essays in Prose, ed. William Duncombe (London, 1735), I, xvii. Scott stigmatized these alterations as “impertinent” and John Brown (op. cit., p. 237) spoke strongly of Hughes: “He had not sufficiently estimated his own Strength, when he adventured to tamper with the Bow of Ulysses. Whenever he hath attempted a Change, he hath quenched the poetic Fire.”

³⁷ The Correspondence of Richard Steele, ed. Blanchard, pp. 45-46.

³⁸ Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Mustck: An Ode Wrote in Honour of St. Cecilia, By Mr. Drydev, Set to Musick by Mr. Handel, London, 1736, Preface.

³⁹ Quoted by Friedrich Chrysander, G. F. Händel (Leipzig, 1858), ii, 423-424 (note).

⁴⁰ Henry Stonecastle, The Universal Spectator (London, 1747), iv, 183.

⁴¹ Another anonymous poetaster exulted over this glorious union of music and poetry in his Ode Sacred to the Genius of Handel:

⁴² The Gentleman's Magazine, x, 254 (May 1740).

⁴³ Horace Walpole, weathercock of current fashion though he was, nevertheless found it difficult to condemn Handel's music wholly and thus damned it with faint praise in his dubious confession: “Though I like Handel, I am not bigoted. I thought Dryden's Ode more harmonious before he set it than after, yet he had expression.” (Letters, ed. Toynbee. Oxford, 1905, x, 187.)

⁴⁴ Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (Twickenham Edition), ed. James Sutherland (London, 1943), p. 65.

⁴⁵ Poems (ed. Harold Williams), 521-522.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 955-961. Williams here reprints John Echlin's music for the cantata.

⁴⁷ Swift, Correspondence (ed. Ball), vi, 223-224. No record exists to indicate that the cantata was ever performed.

⁴⁸ Husk, op. cit., pp. 79-80.

⁴⁹ Ibid., pp. 234-236.

⁵⁰ Boswell, op. cit., i, 487.

⁵¹ P[ierre Anthony] Motteux, Love's Triumph: An Opera (London, 1708), Dedication.

⁵² Beattie, op. cit., p. 151.

⁵³ Charles Avison, An Essay on Musical Expression (London, 1752), pp. 71-74.

⁵⁴ The Letters of John Dryden, ed. Ward, p. 98.

⁵⁵ Malone, op. cit., p. 477. Neo-classical critics almost universally agreed with Dryden's verdict upon Alexander's Feast. “We have had in our language,” Gray declared, “no other odes of the sublime kind, than that of Dryden on St. Cecilia's Day” (quoted by Roscoe, op. cit., iii, 233). Dr. Johnson made the supreme statement when he wrote in his Life of Dryden: “The ode for St. Cecilia's Day … has been always considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If, indeed, there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works, that excellence must be found.” Later Scott (op. cit., i, 410; xi, 166) praised “the sublime, lofty, and daring flights of the Ode to St Cecilia” and indicated that “the poetry received, even in the author's time, all the applause which its unrivalled excellence demanded. … It is perhaps only our intimate acquaintance with the second ode that leads us to undervalue the first, although containing the original ideas, so exquisitely brought out and embodied in Alexander's Feast.”

⁵⁶ The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Joseph Warton (London, 1797), i, 143 (note).

⁵⁷ Brown, op. cit., p. 237.

⁵⁸ William Congreve, Complete Works, ed. Montagu Summers (London, 1923), iii, 89.

⁵⁹ Van Doren, op. cit., pp. 258-259.

⁶⁰ Shuster, op. cit., p. 139.

⁶¹ Du Bos, op. cit., i, 386-387.

⁶² The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. William Lisle Bowles (London, 1806), i, 161.

⁶³ Brown, op. cit., p. 233.

⁶⁴ William Jackson, Thirty Letters on Various Subjects (Dublin, 1783), pp. 38-39.

⁶⁵ Beattie, op. cit., pp. 127-128.

⁶⁶ Not all critics of the period, however, shared this view, and Joseph Warton (op. cit., i, 147, note) took an approach diametrically opposed to that held by his contemporaries. Praising “the glow and expressiveness” of Dryden's images, he declared that the imagery “is so alive, so sublime, and so animated, that the poet himself appears to be strongly possessed of the action described, and consequently places it fully before the eyes of the reader.” Elsewhere (op. cit., i, 143, note) Warton lauds Alexander's Feast, which “the beauty, force, and energy of its images, have conspired to place at the head of modern Lyric compositions: always excepting The Bard of Gray.” Certainly Warton did not share Du Bos' distrust of imagery. Later Scott (op. cit., xi, 166) went so far as to complain of the 1687 ode that, although “the first stanza has exquisite merit, … the power of music is announced, in those which follow, in a manner more abstracted and general, and, therefore, less striking than when its influence upon Alexander and his chiefs is placed before our eyes.” Both Warton and Scott share somewhat the view of critics today. Clearly there is a pictorial effect in Dryden's verse, but we may still note with interest the striking and typical viewpoint of Augustan critics.

⁶⁷ The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. George Gilfillan (Edinburgh, 1855), ii, xvi.

⁶⁸ The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. Robert Bell (London, 1851), ii, 168.

⁶⁹ Quoted by Van Doren, op. cit., p. 294.

⁷⁰ The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. John Mitford (Boston, 1854), i, cxxv.

⁷¹ The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. Joseph and John Warton (London, 1811), ii, 345.

⁷² The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope (London, 1871-1889), vi, 113-114.

⁷³ Warburton, op. cit., i, 118 (note).

⁷⁴ Warton, op. cit., ii, 346.

⁷⁵ The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Warton, i, 152 (note).,“His last stanza,” Dr. Johnson wrote in his Life of Dryden, “has less emotion than the former; but it is not less elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the musick of Timotheus, which ‘raised a mortal to the skies,’ had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia which ‘drew an angel down,’ had a real effect: the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be divided.”

⁷⁶ Brown, op. cit., p. 233.

⁷⁷ Warton, Essay on Pope, i, 52-53 (note).

⁷⁸ The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Warton, i, 149-150 (note).

⁷⁹ Warton, Essay on Pope, i, 63.

⁸⁰ The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. Warton, ii, 345.

⁸¹ Mitford, op. cit., i, cxxv. John Brown (op. cit., pp. 234-235) set up the following injunction: “The intermixed Narrations must be short and animated: The Songs and Choirs various and expressive; and being frequently interrupted by the brief Recitals, may by these Means be inspirited far beyond the simple and continued Ode, which from its unbroken Length often degenerates into Languor. By this Union, all the striking Parts of the Action may be brought forth to View, while every thing that is cold, improbable, and un-affecting, may be veiled in Darkness.”

⁸² Brown, op. cit., pp. 235-236.

⁸³ Ibid., p. 234.

⁸⁴ Ibid., pp. 225-226.

⁸⁵ The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Warton, i, 151 (note).

⁸⁶ Warton, Essay on Pope, i, 63-64.

⁸⁷ Beattie, op. cit., pp. 151-152.

⁸⁸ John Mason, An Essay on the Power of Numbers and the Principles of Harmony in Poetical Composition (London, 1749), p. 28. Cf. Alexander Malcolm, A Treatise of Musick (Edinburgh, 1721), p. 588: “In setting Musick to Words, the Thing principally minded is, to accomodate the long and short Notes to the Syllables in such Manner as the Words may be well separated, and the accented Syllable of every Word so conspicuous, that what is sung may be distinctly understood: The Movement and Measure is also suited to the different Subjects, for which the Variety of Notes, and the Constitutions or Modes of Time … afford sufficient means.”

⁸⁹ Spectator 18.

⁹⁰ Brown, op. cit., pp. 236-237.

⁹¹ See the excellent analysis by Ernest Brennecke, Jr., of “Dryden's Odes and Draghi's Music,” PMLA, xlix (1934), 1-36. Mr. Brennecke explains in admirable detail how Alexander's Feast overcame the difficulties of the 1687 ode, and illustrates with liberal selections from Draghi's music.

⁹² Beattie, op. cit., p. 152.

⁹³ Ernest Brennecke, Jr., op. cit., p. 35. I am indebted to Mr. Brennecke's article for my remarks on devices conducive to flexibility in musical odes.