tion. Popula- The population of the British province in 1881 numbered | understand and are gradually adopting the more comprehensive Mohammedans 10,525,150 Hindus Sikhs 1,121,004 Jains 35,826 Christians 33,420 British Native Total. 595,110 6,852 279 Buddhists. 2,864 387 3,251 The Punjab has one-fourth of the Mohammedan inhabitants of India, one-twentieth of the Hindus, and eleven-twelfths of the Sikhs. Of the Hindus the classes most largely represented are Játs (4,432,720) and Rajputs (1,677,569). There are in the Punjab certain criminal tribes, always under surveillance, of which the population is at present 13,957. The tribes of the western hill frontier are Mohammedans and Patláns in the north and Baluchis in the south (with one Pathán tribe among them). There are sixteen principal Pathán tribes, of which the most important are the Momand, Afridi, and Orakzai on the Peshawar border, and the Waziri adjoining Bannú and the Déraját; and seven Baluch tribes on the Dera Ghází Khán border, the chief of which are the Bózdár, Marrí, and Bugtí. Adminis- The British province is divided for administrative purposes into trative thirty-one districts, each under a deputy commissioner, grouped in divisions, six divisions, each under a commissioner. Hindustani. These two languages are the most generally used Many books, periodicals, and newspapers are published in some of The number of children under instruction in schools in the Pun- Educajab is 184,000 (9000 girls). There are 1559 primary schools for tion. boys, 206 middle schools, 25 high schools, and 3 industrial schools, also a training college and 4 normal schools. For girls there are 321 primary schools, 4 middle, 1 high, 1 industrial, and 4 normal schools. The higher and special educational institutions are the Lahore Government College, the Cambridge University Mission College at Delhi, the Oriental College of the Punjab University, the Medical School, and the Mayo School of Art, the last three at Lahore. A ward's school, for the orphans of Sikh chiefs, established at Ambala in 1867, is about to be extended to receive other upper-class students. The Government department of public instruction was established in 1856. In 1868 the first proposal of a university for the Punjab was made, chiefly at the instance of the literary society called the Anjuman-i-Punjab, with the support of the native chiefs. The institution took the form in 1870 of the Punjab University College, and it was raised in November 1882 to the status of a university. There are several other literary societies in the Punjab besides the Anjuman at Lahore. The police force numbers 19,827 men, with 580 officers, 68 of whom are Europeans. There is in addition a special frontier police. The military force in occupation of the Punjab consists of (1) Army. British troops (of which it has a larger proportion than any other province); (2) native troops of the regular Indian army; (3) the Punjab frontier force, a local body of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, ordinarily employed only on the military duties of the western frontier; and (4) the frontier militia, composed of men of the border tribes, both within and without British territory, employed as auxiliary to the regular troops, to garrison certain of the smaller fortified posts along the frontier. There is also a volunteer rifle corps of Europeans at the large stations and on the lines of railway. The total military force, including police, of the native states in connexion with the Punjab is 21,500. The native states in feudal subordination to the British Government and in connexion with the Punjab are thirty-six in number, thirty-one Hindu and five Mohammedan. Of these many are very insignificant, the rulers being petty Rájput chiefs of old family and small means. The highest chief in rank and importance is the mahárájá of Kashmir and Jammú, a Dógra Rájput (see vol. xiv. p. 12). The next is the mahárájá of PATIALA (q.v.). The Mohammedan state of Bahawalpur on the Sutlej is next, with a popula-metal-work, wood and ivory carving, turned and lacquered woodtion under half a million and a revenue of about 20 lakhs, Next in order are the rájás of Jind and NÁBHA (q.v.), cis-Sutlej states. They are Játs, like the mahárájá of Patiala, of the Phúlkian clan (named from Phúl, the founder of these three houses, in the middle of last century). Next comes the rájá of KAPURTHALA (q.v.) in the fertile Jalandar Doab, of the Ahlúwália family. Of the rest the most important in point of revenue are the states of Mandi in the hill country west of the Sutlej, and Sarmúr in the hills east of that river, under Rajput rulers, and Faridkót and Maler Kotla in the plains, cis-Sutlej, the former Hindu, the latter Mohammedan. Of the 22,700,000 people in the Punjab, in British territory and guages the native states, about 14,000,000 speak the provincial language, Panjabi, which varies in character in different parts of the province. About 4,250,000 speak HINDUSTANI (q.v.), this number including those whose ordinary vernacular is Hindi, but who Most of the native manufactures of the Punjab are those common Manuto other parts of India, such as the ordinary cotton fabrics, plain factures. woollen blankets, unglazed pottery, ropes and cord, grass matting, paper, leather-work, brass vessels, simple agricultural implements, and the tools used in trades. Other manufactures, not so general, yet not peculiar to the Punjab, are woollen fabrics, carpets and shawls, silk cloths and embroidery, jewellery and ornamental work, glazed pottery, arms and armour, and musical instruments. But some of these classes of manufacture are represented by work of special kinds or special excellence in particular parts of the Punjab, notably the silk fabrics of Múltán and of Bahawalpur, the capital of the native state; the carpets of Lahore, Peshawar, &c.; the kashi" (see KASHI) or glazed tile-work (an ancient art still practised in a few places); "kóft-kári," inlaid metal-work (gold wire on steel), chiefly made at Gujrát and Sialkót; shawls and other fine woollen fabrics, made by Kashmiri work people at Lndiana and Núrpúr, as well as in Kashmir; "lungis," waist and turban scarfs, made at Peshawar, Bannú, &c. ; silk embroidery for shawls, scarfs, and turbans, at Delhi, Lahore, and Múltán; embroidery on cloth for elephant-trappings, bed and table covers, &c., at Lahore and Multán; enamelled ornaments, in Kangra and Múltán; quill embroidery on leather, in Kangra and Simla; lacquered wood The India Museum at South Kensington has an excellent series of representations of native artisans and their mode of working, from the pencil of the present director of the Lahore School of Art, Mr J. L Kipling, formerly of the School of Art at Bombay, Finance. The work, Pák Pattan. At Kohat there is a special manufactory of The revenue of the British province is £3,232,349. Of this sum Com- The total length of railways in the province now (1885) open for History. While the amount of railway and other traffic has been steadily increasing with the facilities afforded, the demands on the postoffice and telegraph have likewise been growing rapidly. The annual number of letters and post-cards, now about twenty millions, has nearly doubled in ten years. The telegraph has had a fluctuating increase in the number of messages, which during the year 1884 was upwards of 142,000. History.For the early history of the Punjab from the Aryan immigration to the rise of the Mogul dynasty the reader may consult the article INDIA (vol. xii. p. 779 sq.). It deserves, however, to be specially noted here with reference to that period that from the time of Alexander onwards Greek settlers remained in the Punjab, and that Greek artists gave their services for Buddhist work and introduced features of their own architecture in Indian as well as Grecian buildings. Besides the bases and capitals of large Greek columns at Sháh-deri (Taxila) and elsewhere, numerous sculptures of Greek workmanship have been found at various places. These are single statues (probably portraits), also figures of Buddha, and representations of scenes in his legendary history, and other subjects. They are obtained from ruins of monasteries and other buildings, from mounds, and the remains of villages or monumental topes. Of Buddhist buildings now remaining the most conspicuous as well as distinctive in character are the topes (sthupa), in shape a plain hemisphere, raised on a platform of two or more stages. One of the largest of these is at Manikyála, 14 miles east of Rawal Pindí. These Buddhist buildings and sculptures are all probably the work of the two centuries before and the three or four after the beginning of the Christian era. The character of the sculptures is now well known from the specimens in the India Museum, South Kensington, and both originals and casts of others in the Lahore Museum. Unfortunately they have no names or inscriptions, which give so much value to the sculptures of the Bharhut tope. The several bodies of settlers in the Punjab from the earliest Tribes times have formed groups of families or clans (not identical with and clans. gener. Indian castes, but in many cases joining them), which have ally preserved distinct characteristics and followed certain classes of occupation in particular parts of the country. Some of the existing tribes in the Punjab are believed to be traceable to the early Aryan settlers, as the Bhatti tribe, whose special region is Bhattiana south of the Sutlej, and who have also in the village of Pindi Bhattián a record of their early occupation of a tract of country on the left bank of the Chinab, west of Lahore. The Dogra, another Aryan clan, belong to a tract of the lower hills between the Chináb and the Rávi. Others similarly have their special ancient localities. To the earlier settlers-the dark race (Dasyú) whom the Aryans found in the country, and who are commonly spoken of as aborigines-belonged, as is supposed, the old tribe called Takka, whose name is found in Taksha-sila or Taxila. And from the later foreigners again, the Indo-Scythians, are probably descended the great Ját tribe of cultivators, also the Gújars, a pastoral people and traders, and others. Some of the tribes or sections of them, having received the Hindu faith and the system of caste, have afterwards given large bodies of converts to Mohammedanism, so that there are now Hindus and Mohammedans of the same tribe continuing to bear the same name. There are Mohammedan Rájputs, and there are both Hindu and Mohammedan Játs, and so with others. It was during the events which brought Bábar, the first of the Sikh Mogul dynasty, to the throne that the sect of the Sikhs arose. sect. Nának, the founder, derived his first ideas of the movement he was to lead from Kabír of Banáras, a Mohammedan by birth (it is believed), who joined himself to a sect of Hindus and strove to give to their religion a new form and spirit free from idolatry. And the Sikh religion of the Punjab, founded on this model, was a reformed and monotheistic Hinduism. Nának was born in 1469 at Talwandi on the Ravi, and lived to the age of seventy, leaving a large number of followers at his death. The name Sikh means disciple," and the strength of the movement lay in the relation of the disciple to the "guru" or spiritual guide. In the time of Bábar's successor, Humáyún (who was only in the Punjab during the temporary success of his rival, Shír Khán Súr), the Sikhs were under the direction of the second of their gurús, Angad (1539-1552), and of the third, Amar Dás (1552-1574). During the long reign of Akbar (1556-1605) the Sikhs increased in number and power under the mild and liberal rule of a Mohammedan emperor who was more than tolerant in all matters of religion. He himself sought diligently for knowledge of other faiths, and Amar Dás, the Sikh gurú, was one of those who had conferences with him. Rain Dás, son-in-law of Amar Dás, succeeded him in 1574. He received from Akbar a gift of a piece of land, on which he dug the large square tank afterwards called Amritsar ("the pool of immortality"). In the last year of this gurú's life the Punjab was visited, on Akbar's invitation, by several Jesuit fathers from Goa, who were received with great favour. To them the emperor gave a site for a church in the city of Lahore, and the church was built at his expense. In 1581 Ram Das was succeeded by his son Arjun Mal, a man of note. In the middle of his father's tank at Amritsar he built the temple, which was called at first Hari Mandar, and afterwards Darbár Sahib, the name by which it is now known. The town which began to rise round the tank and temple was made the headquarters of the Sikhs. Arjun gave further coherence to the body of his followers by levying a regular tax in place of the free and varied offerings they used to give; and he was the compiler of the sacred book called the Adi Granth, the materials for which he had Akbar lived much in the received unarranged from his father. Punjab. In 1586 he directed a campaign against the Afghans of the Peshawar valley, which was attended with no important results except the death of his able minister Bir Bal. In the next year he conquered Kashmir. On his visit to this new acquisition he was Har accompanied by one of the Portuguese Jesuits, Jerome Xavier (nephew of the celebrated Francis), who was a special friend of the emperor and was with him at the time of his death at Agra in 1605. Arjun's power and prosperity lasted only during Akbar's lifetime. Jahangir was equally favourable to the Christian missionaries; but the Sikh gurú incurred his displeasure. Believed to be a partisan of the emperor's rebellious son Khusrú, Arjun was imprisoned in 1606 and died soon after. His successor, Har Govind. Govind, was only twelve years of age at the time of Arjun's death, and as he grew up his relation to the Sikhs became that of commander more than gurú. The promulgation of the Granth for instruction of the people had made a way for this change in the character of the leadership. The work of the teacher was now in great measure transferred to the guardians of the sacred volume, who read it in the ears of the people. The gurú thenceforth was the organizing head more than the religious guide. As a young man Har Govind accompanied the emperor to Kashmir. Jahangir, on his way back from this favourite summer resort, died at Rájaori in 1627, and was buried at Sháh-dera on the Rávi, opposite Lahore. His widow, Núr Jahán, erected a beautiful monunient over him, and was herself buried at the same place. "" or The reign of Shah Jahán (1627-1658) added much to the prosperity of the Punjab. The emperor's large views found a fitting agent in Ali Mardán Khán, his minister and director of works. Under his orders the canal from the Rávi near the foot of the hills to Lahore was made, and the Jumna Canal, which had been constructed in the 14th century by Firóz Sháh, was restored and improved. Ali Mardán Khán also built the magnificent "saráis rest-houses for travellers on the high road to Kashmir, and other works of utility in the Punjab. In the contests between the two sons of Shah Jahan the Punjab favoured the elder, Dara Shikó, whose intelligent interest in the welfare of the country, joined to literary tastes and liberal views, commended him to all classes of the people. His name is preserved in the town of Shikó-púra, 18 miles west of Lahore, Dara-nagar, and other places. The present military station of Lahore bears the name of Dara's religious instructor, Mián Mír, near whose tomb, erected by his royal pupil, the British cantonment is built. Har Govind, the sixth Sikh gurú, died in 1645. Har Rái, who succeeded him, gave his support to Dara Shikó. Dara was not successful in maintaining his rights against his younger brother Alamgir (called Aurangzíb), who succeeded his father in 1658. Bernier, who was visiting India at this time, was a companion of the elder brother when in misfortune and of the younger when in power. Like his three predecessors, Aurangzib was fond of visiting Kashmir, and his journey through the Punjab on one of these occasions (1663-64) furnishes one of the most lively pictures of Bernier's Indian experiences. Har Rái died in 1661, and his successor, Har Kishan, a boy, held the nominal leadership of the Sikhs only three years, being followed in 1664 by Tegh Bahadur, a son of Har Govind. When, on his return to the Punjab from a visit to Bengal, he was thought to be exercising authority inconsistent with loyalty to the emperor, he was put to death by Aurangzib in 1675. This roused the Sikhs to greater zeal in the Govind adoption of a military constitution. The next gurú, Govind Rái, son of Tegh Bahadur, after passing some years in retirement and study, came forth a vigorous and enthusiastic leader, with high aims. He set himself to the task of organizing the Sikhs of the Punjab, now becoming formidable from their number, their physique, and their warlike propensities. The first adherents of Nának, the founder of the sect, had been mostly Játs and Khattris. Many were men of great stature and powerful frame. As Sikhs they acquired a distinctive appearance by giving up the Hindu practice of shaving the head and face. They were forbidden the uso of tobacco; and their discipline in other things prepared them for being indeed the soldiers they looked. Govind Rái adopted the designation "Singh" (lion), and this became the distinctive addition to the names of all Sikhs. He called the whole body the "khalsa" or free, and he devised a rite of initiation called the "pahal." He compiled a supplement to the Granth, containing instruction suited to the altered condition of the Sikh people. After the death of Aurangzib in 1707 he accepted the invitation of Bahadur Shah to join him in a campaign against the Mahrattás. At Nadér, on the Godávari, he was murdered in 1708. His principal associate, Banda, led the Sikhs back to the Punjab and turned his armis against the Government. After a long series of fights with the Mogul's troops, during the reigns of Bahadur Shah and Farrukh Siyar, Banda was at length taken in 1716 and put to death. Mohammed Shah was on the throne of Delhi, much occupied in contests with the Mahrattás, when Nádir Sháh invaded India. Afghan Nadir's march through the Punjab in the beginning of 1739 met invasion, with no great opposition; but the Sikhs kept up a system of desultory plunder both of the invaders and of the people fleeing from them. Lahore submitted and was spared; and it escaped again, on Nádir's return, after the defeat of Mohammed Shah at Karnal and the massacre at Delhi, by having a large sum of money ready to meet the expected demand. The Punjab offered no more Persian and | effective resistance to the invasion in 1747 of Ahmad Shah For a time the Sikhs seemed to have the prospect of holding the Period Whilst he after his death in 1839, the British were putting Shah Shujá back on the throne of Cabul. Ranjit was succeeded by his eldest son Kharrak Singh. He left two reputed sons, Shír Singh and Dhalíp Singh, and two adopted sons, Kashmira Singh and Peshaura Singh, named from expeditions on which Ranjit was engaged at the time Years of they were taken into his family. When Kharrak Singh made Cheit disorder. Singh his chief minister in place of the Jammú brothers, Dhián Singh killed the new minister. And now for a time the history of the Punjab became a history of intrigues and deeds of violence, and of contests for power which, when gained, could not be kept. Kharrak Singh's successor, Nau Nihál Singh, was killed by the fall of a beam from the Roshnai gateway of the Huzuri Bagh at Lahore as he was returning from the deceased king's funeral. Shir Singh | succeeded, a man addicted, like Ranjít, to intemperance, and he was His son soon put out of the way by Ajit Singh Sindhanwala. Partáb Singh was murdered by Lena Singh Majithia. Ranjit's adopted sons, Peshaura and Kashmara Singh, were also killed. Then came the turn of the ex-minister Dhián Singh, who was slain by the same hand that had put Shír Singh to death, and which now placed the young Dhalip Singh on the throne. Other assassinations accompanied these chief ones. The leading Sindhanwalas were now all murdered, and with the accession of Dhalíp Singh the friends of his mother, the rání, came into power, some of the wise old servants of Ranjit also continuing to hold important offices. First Sikh war. Second war. Ranjit had left an army of 92,000 infantry, 31,800 cavalry, with another of those in nominal power had been assassinated and the west of the Indus, hearing of the attack on the two officers, hastened Under rule, the siege of Delhi, while suppressing the disturbances which arose, and meeting the dangers which threatened, within the Punjab itself. In 1858 the Delhi territory, as it was called, west of the Jumna, was transferred from the North-West Provinces to the Punjab. The enlarged province was raised in rank, and on 1st January 1859 the chief commissioner became lieutenant-governor. In place of the judicial commissioner a chief court was constituted in 1866. The number of judges, at first two, was increased to three in 1869. The number is now (1885) three permanent and two temporary. The form and manner of government are for the most part like those of other British provinces in India, except that the employment, as in the earlier days, of military officers as well as civilians in the civil administration is continued to the present time. Soon after the annexation of the Punjab Christian missions were begun in the new province by the Church Missionary Society and the American Presbyterian Board. In connexion with the English society there are twenty-four ordained English missionaries, four medical and two lay missionaries, and ten native clergy. At Delhi there is a mission of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Cambridge University Mission. Also a large number of English ladies are engaged in teaching native ladies, who by the customs of the country are obliged to remain at home. The number of native Christians in the Punjab is nearly 4000. In 1879 a new diocese, that of Lahore, was constituted, embracing the provinces of Punjab and Sind. Authorities.-D. Ibbetson, Report on the Punjab Census of 1881; L. H. Griffin, Punjaub Chiefs and Rajas of the Punjaub; B. H. Baden Powell, Punjab Products and Punjab Manufactures; A. Cunningham, Ancient Geography of N. India; J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs; H. Elliot, Historians of India (by Dowson); Martin Honigberger, Thirty-five Years in the East; M. Elphinstone, Caubul; Prinsep, History of the Punjab; H. Lawrence, The Adventurer in the Punjab; Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence; H. Edwardes, A Year on the Punjab Frontier; C. Hügel, Travels in Kashmir and the Punjab; Victor Jacquemont, Journey in India; George Foster, Journey from Bengal to England; Stanislas Julien, Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang and Hiouen Thsang, Mémoire sur les Contrées Occidentales; F. Bernier, Voyages; G. St P. Lawrence, Reminiscences of Forty-five Years in India; D'Anville, Antiquité Géographique de l'Inde; V. de St Martin, Géographie du Véda; Lassen, Pentapotamia Indica; R. Clark, Thirty Years of Missionary Work in the Punjab; Calcutta Review, vols. i. and .; Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; Punjab Notes and Queries, (R. M'L*.) &c. PUPPETS. See MARIONETTES. PURCELL, HENRY (1658-1695), English musical composer, was born in 1658 in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster. His father, Henry Purcell, was a gentleman of the chapel-royal, and in that capacity sang at the coronation of Charles II. After his father's death in 1664 the boy was placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Thomas Purcell, a man of extraordinary probity and kindness. Through the interest of this affectionate guardian, who was himself a gentleman of His Majesty's chapel, Henry was admitted to the chapel-royal as a chorister, and studied first under Captain Henry Cooke, "master of the children," and afterwards under Pelham Humfrey. He is said to have composed well at nine years old; but the earliest work that can be certainly written identified as his is an ode for the king's birthday, in 1670. After Humfrey's early death in 1674 he continued his studies under Dr Blow. In 1676 he was appointed copyist at Westminster Abbey-not organist, as has sometimes been erroneously stated-and in the same year he composed the music to Dryden's Aurenge-Zebe, and Shadwell's Epsom Wells and The Libertine.1 These were followed in 1677 by the music to Mrs Behn's tragedy, Abdelazor, and in 1678 by an overture and masque for Shadwell's new version of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. The excellence of these compositions is proved by the fact that they contain songs and choruses which never fail to The masque in Timon please, even at the present day. of Athens is a masterpiece, and the chorus "In these "in The Libertine is constantly In 1679 delightful pleasant groves sung with applause by English choral societies. he wrote some songs for Playford's Choice Ayres, Songs, and Dialogues, and also an anthem, the name of which is not known, for the chapel-royal. From a letter written by Thomas Purcell, and still extant, we learn that this anthem was composed for the exceptionally fine voice of the Rev. John Gostling, then at Canterbury, but after 1 The Libertine was suggested by Tirso de Molina's tale, El Burlador de Sevilla, afterwards dramatically treated by Molière and chosen by Da Ponte as the foundation of Mozart's Don Giovanni. wards a gentleman of His Majesty's chapel. Purcell wrote Purcell wrote several anthems at different times for this extraordinary voice, a basso profundo, the compass of which is known to have comprised at least two full octaves, from D below the stave to D above it. The dates of very few of these sacred compositions are known; but one, "They that go down to the sea in ships," though certainly not written until some time after this period, will be best mentioned here. In thankfulness for a providential escape of the king from shipwreck Gostling, who had been of the royal party, put together some verses from the Psalms in the form of an anthem, and requested Purcell to set them to music. The work is a very fine one but very difficult, and contains a passage which traverses the full extent of Gostling's voice, beginning on the upper D and descending two octaves to the lower. In 1680 Dr Blow, who had been appointed organist of Westminster Abbey in 1669, resigned his office in favour of his pupil; and Purcell, at the age of twenty-two, was placed in one of the most honourable positions an English artist could occupy. He now devoted himself almost entirely to the composition of sacred music, and for six years entirely severed his connexion with the theatre. But during the early part of the year, and in all probability before entering upon the duties of his new office, he had produced two important works for the stage, the music for Lee's Theodosius and D'Urfey's Virtuous Wife. There is also strong evidence that it was in 1680-not, as has been generally represented, in 1675—that he composed his opera Dido and Eneas, a work of far greater significance in the development of art than has generally been supposed, since it forms a very important landmark in the history of English dramatic music. It was written, to a libretto furnished by Nahum Tate, at the request of Josiah Priest, a professor of dancing, who also kept a boarding-school for young gentlewomen, first in Leicester Fields and afterwards at Chelsea. At the time of its production the condition of dramatic music in England was very rudimentary indeed, so much so that the opera, properly so called, cannot fairly be said to have existed even in embryo, though it had long flourished brilliantly in Italy, and was beginning to take firm root in France. No English composer had as yet soared above the songs and choruses introduced into the masques, the comedies, and the tragedies of the period, for the purpose of enlivening the performance,-music always of a purely incidental character, and always quite unconnected with the progressive action of the piece. Very different was the mixed form of entertainment thus produced from the true musical drama, the invention of which in Italy dated as far back as the closing years of the 16th century. At that period a number of literary and artistic savants-among them Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer, Jacopo Peri, Giulio Carcini, and the poet Rinuccini-were accustomed to meet in Florence for purposes of discussion at the house of Giovanni Bardi, count of Vernio. Deeply imbued with the principles of the Renaissance, these heated enthusiasts were determined to carry them from the domain of literature into that of music; and their first dream was the revival of the method of recitation practised by the early Greeks in the tragedies of Eschylus and Sophocles. This, however, was, if only for technical reasons, absolutely impossible. The art was lost for ever; but in seeking to resuscitate it they invented something much more precious-dramatic recitative. With this at command the construction of the veritable "dramma per la musica' was no difficult matter; and in fact Peri actually pro The difficulty in fixing the exact date of its composition arises from a doubt as to whether or not it was performed in Leicester Fields before it was played in the new boarding-school at Chelsea. duced a true opera, Euridice, which in 1600 was performed at Florence in honour of the marriage of Maria de' Medici with Henry IV. of France. Purcell, who had never been in Italy, confesses himself, in the preface to his sonatas, "unskilful in the Italian language," and could never by any chance have heard an Italian opera; but he knew very well what Italian music was, and had not neglected to study it deeply. Yet it is doubtful whether all Italy could at that moment have produced a work so full of inborn genius as Dido and Eneas. It is a musical drama in the strictest sense of the term, a genuine opera, in which the action is entirely carried on in recitative, without a word of spoken dialogue from beginning to end; and the music is of the most genial character--a veritable inspiration, overflowing with spontaneous melody, and in every respect immensely in advance of its age. It never found its way to the theatre, though it appears to have been very popular among private circles. It is believed to have been extensively copied, but one song only was printed by Purcell's widow in Orpheus Britannicus, and the complete work remained in manuscript until 1840, when it was printed by the Musical Antiquarian Society, under the editorship of Sir George Macfarren. There is a tradition that the part of Anna (erroneously called Belinda), written for an alto voice, was sung by the composer himself. Should this story be verified, it will tell strongly in favour of the opinion that Purcell really did compose Dido and Eneas at the age of seventeen, i.e., in 1675; for it is certain that at the coronation of James II. he sang bass. In 1682 Purcell was appointed organist of the chapelroyal, vice Edmund Lowe deceased, an office which he was able to hold conjointly with his appointment at Westminster Abbey. For some years after this his pen was busily employed in the production of sacred music, odes addressed to the king and royal family, and other similar works. In 1685 he wrote two of his finest anthems, "I was glad" and "My heart is inditing," for the coronation of James II. In 1687 he resumed his connexion with the theatre by furnishing the music for Dryden's tragedy Tyrannic Love. It is probable that the public were not at this time prepared for works of so advanced a character as Dido and Eneas; for, though the young composer's pen was constantly employed in the production of incidental music, overtures, and act tunes for pieces of the period, we find him attempting no more operas based upon the true principles so cordially accepted on the Continent. In this year also Purcell composed a march and quick-step, which became so popular that Lord Wharton adapted the latter to the fatal verses of Lillibulero; and in January 1688 he composed his anthem "Blessed are they that fear the Lord," by express command of the king. A few months later he wrote the music for D'Urfey's play, The Fool's Preferment. In 1690 he wrote the songs for Dryden's version of Shakespeare's Tempest, including "Full fathom five" and "Come unto these yellow sands," and the music for Betterton's Prophetess (afterwards called Dioclesian) and Dryden's Amphitryon; and in 1691 he produced his dramatic masterpiece, King Arthur, also written by Dryden, and first published by the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1843. But Purcell's greatest work is undoubtedly his Te Deum and Jubilate, written for St Cecilia's Day, 1694, the first English Te Deum ever composed with orchestral accompaniments. In this he pressed forward so far in advance of the age that the work was annually performed at St Paul's Cathedral till 1712, after which it was performed alternately with Handel's Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate until 1743, when it finally gave place to Handel's 2 Alessandro Scarlatti was one year younger than Purcell, and produced his first opera, L'Onestà nell' amore, in 1680. XX. |