were the intrigues and contentions of the green-room suited to a character of which benevolence and strict integrity formed the principal features. For the last thirty years of his life he had given up dramatic composition. The works which he produced during this period were almost exclusively of a religious character.

The Prince of Wales, on Attwood's return to England, appointed him one of his chamber musicians, a situation which he held for many years. On the marriage of the Duke of York with the Princess Royal of Prussia, he was selected as her musical instructor, and he afterwards attended the Princess of Wales in the same capacity. When the differences at Carlton House began to assume a serious form, he was often placed in situations of a very trying kind, in which he was uniformly guided by sound principle and discretion. On the coronation of George IV., it became Attwood's official duty to compose one of the coronation anthems, when he produced "I was glad when they said unto me," which was performed at the coronation, was afterwards published, and sung at every musical festival in the kingdom. It also restored him to the notice of his early patron, who appointed him organist of the private chapel in the Pavilion at Brighton-a place solely of honour, as the expenses attending it far exceeded his salary. On the accession of William IV., he composed for the coronation his anthem, “O Lord, grant the King a long life." He survived the accession of Queen Victoria, and had commenced his anthem for her coronation, which, however, he did not live to witness.

His appointment to the office of composer to his majesty took place in 1796, on the death of Dr. Dupuis, on which occasion Dr. Porteus, then dean of the Chapel Royal, separated the place of composer from that of organist, and Attwood did not hold the latter till the death of Mr. Stafford Smith, about thirty years afterwards.

The following list comprises all of Attwood's compositions for the church that are now known to exist:-Morning and Evening Service in F, 1796, published in Goss and Turle's Cathedral Music; Morning and Evening Service in A, 1825; Morning and Evening Service in c, 1832; Morning and Evening Service in D, 1833.

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In addition to the anthems already mentioned-" Teach me, O Lord" (printed); My soul truly waiteth" (ditto); "Bow down thine ear" (ditto); "Turn thee, O Lord" (ditto); "Let thy hand be strengthened," with orchestral accompaniments; "Blessed is he that considereth;" Collect for the Epiphany; Collect for the first Sunday after Epiphany; "Grant, we beseech thee;" Let the words of my mouth;" "Withdraw not thou thy mercy;" "They that go down;""O pray for the peace;"

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"Be thou my judge." The anthem "Blessed is he" was written for the yearly meeting of the charity children at St. Paul's in 1806; the rest bear various dates, from 1814 to 1837. He also set the "Sanctus" and the "Kyrie Eleison" in several different keys, apart from the Services already named.

His labours as composer to his majesty were prompted by a sense of duty and a love of his art. From the official dignitaries of the Chapel Royal he experienced only discouragement. His first Service in F alone appears on the choir books; the parts of his other Services he was compelled to have copied at his own expense. When he had finished his second Coronation Anthem, a similar objection was made to the expense of having the necessary orchestral parts copied, and it was only in consequence of his declared intention of appealing directly to the king that the composition was prepared for performance. When engaged in writing his first Coronation Anthem, he received an intimation, from the same quarter, that it must not exceed seven minutes in length; an injunction which, to a man of Attwood's character and station, was equally rude and barbarous.

Another department of his art was cultivated by Attwood with equal success: some time after his return to England he became known as a glee writer. The society known by the appellation of the "Concentores Sodales," and of which Webbe, Callcott, R. Cooke, Horsley, and other eminent glee writers have been members, was founded in 1798, and Attwood joined it in 1801. There was also a society called "The Harmonists," which used to meet at the Albion Tavern, for the purpose of glee singing, of which Stevens-the Gresham professor of music-was long the director, and for which he wrote many of his admirable glees. On his resignation Attwood was invited to succeed him, and for these two societies most of his glees were composed. He also followed the example which Stevens was the first to set, and produced several glees with double accompaniment for the pianoforte. Among the most popular of these were "In peace love tunes the shepherd's reed" and "Rise to the battle, my thousands." A long list might be given of his single songs, but there is one which earned a career of popularity which few classical English songs have, of late years, attained. "The Soldier's Dream” is the product of a mind gifted with power to confer upon music its highest attribute and most powerful charm.

Attwood was married in 1793 to Mary, only child of Matthew Denton, Esq., of Stotfold, Bedfordshire. His son George, as Senior Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, succeeded to the living of Framlingham, Suffolk, of which he is now rector.

Attwood died in March, 1838, and was

Haydn; and the Sinfonias of Mozart were unknown to the London performers. The vocal concerts of Harrison, Knyvett, and Bartleman were the fashionable musical entertainments of the metropolis, and the devotion of George III. to the compositions of Handel excluded those of every other master, English or foreign, from the precincts of the court. Attwood, who came over enriched with the works of his master, and eager to introduce them to the notice of his countrymen, found neither sympathy nor help neither performers nor listeners. He assembled some of the best players of the day, and placed before them Mozart's beautiful sinfonia in E flat. After several reluctant attempts, it was thrown aside as an impracticable affair, and many years elapsed before its merits were appreciated by any portion of the English public. It was Mozart's intention to visit England in the year 1791, in conformity with his promise to Salomon, but death closed his short and brilliant career before the stipulated period arrived, and Attwood saw his honoured instructor no more.

Such a state of things was singularly unfavourable for the development of Attwood's musical powers. His ardour was dampedhis zeal discouraged. Even the situation he filled at St. Paul's was not the one most suited to him. He had quitted the English school and, in a degree, formed his style of ecclesiastical composition anew. He had become used to the modern music of the Roman Catholic church-to its gorgeous and brilliant orchestral accompaniment, and to the interspersion of operatic passages and operatic effects into the service of the mass. These, perhaps imperceptibly, tinged his own compositions and style of accompaniment, and cathedral music thus received from him somewhat of a new colour. He entered, however, upon his new duty (as he did upon every duty) with alacrity and zeal, and produced many services and anthems for the Chapel Royal and for St. Paul's.

In Italy and in modern Germany most of the composers who have excelled in writing for the stage have also devoted their talents to the service of the church. In England three names alone of any eminence appear both as sacred and dramatic writers-Purcell, Boyce, and Attwood: and of these the first only continued to write for the stage to the termination of his brief career; Boyce and Attwood quitted all connection with it at a comparatively early period. Attwood had the power to have done much for the English lyric drama, but he was denied the means. He had just quitted a country in which every theatre was supplied with excellent instrumental performers and competent singers. He found at the great London theatres neither the one nor the other. Their orchestras were limited and feeble, and their singers were not able to realize

his conceptions of the true power and effect of dramatic music. He had to write for Incledon, Sedgwick, and Dignum. Incledon was the child and pupil of nature, endowed with a voice which for tone and compass was unrivalled-gifted with the power of imparting to the simplest melody a degree of expression that went to the heart, because thence it sprang, but unequal to grapple with the more elaborate forms of vocal composition. The same may be said of Sedgwick, whose splendid voice was only surpassed by his musical ignorance. Dignum knew a little more, but his vocal range was very limited. As instructed singers the ladies of the two theatres, at this time, took a higher rank, and among them Mrs. Crouch and Miss Leak. But Attwood, like every writer for the stage, was compelled to adapt himself to the powers of his singers, and hence his productions for the stage exhibit their capabilities rather than his own. Nor did he ever attempt a grand opera, of which he regarded the performance, according to his view of it, as hopeless, contenting himself with the production of a number of musical after-pieces. The first of these was "The Prisoner," of which the libretto was written by the Rev. Mr. Rose, one of the masters of Merchant Tailors' school. It was performed by the Drury-Lane company in 1792 at the Opera House (Drury Lane Theatre being then in the course of erection), and, according to Oulton, "well received." Here Attwood introduced to his countrymen Mozart's now well-known song, "Non più andrai," which was sung by Sedgwick to words beginning "Where the banners of glory are streaming," and evinced powers both natural and acquired in the rest of the opera, which might, under more favourable circumstances, have advanced the reputation of the English lyric drama. The following list comprises all Attwood's dramatic productions: Prisoner," 1792; "The Mariners," 1793; "Adopted Child," 1793; " Carnarvon Castle," 1793; "Poor Sailor," 1795; "Smugglers," 1796; "Mouth of the Nile," 1798; "Devil of a Lover," 1798; Day at Rome," 1798; "Castle of Sorrento," 1799; Magic Oak" (pantomime), 1799; "Old Clothesman," 1799; " Red Cross Knight," 1799; “St. David's Day," 1800; "True Friends," 1800; "Escapes" (altered from Cherubini), 1801. He also wrote, in 1807, the music for Tobin's posthumous play of "The Curfew," which contains the most popular of his dramatic compositions," Hark, the curfew's solemn sound." These musical pieces were, for the most part, expected to be short-lived, and they were so; but there is scarcely one devoid of some evidences of their author's inventive powers and attainments. Attwood was always in the power of his singers, to their caprices he was compelled to conform, and often to write down to their level; nor

The

In Attwood's character were combined qualities which commanded the respect and won the affection of those who were associated with him either by family ties, by professional intercourse, or by the relations of instructor and pupil. He delighted, from his copious store of knowledge and experience, to guide and animate the young, even the youngest musical student. Instruction was, with him, not only a duty but a pleasure, and in this feeling all who received it from him largely participated. Every evidence of talent among his pupils he cherished with parental assiduity and spoke of it with parental pride. To his art he was enthusiastically attached, and this feeling continued without abatement through his life. Though his exertions were early checked from causes over which he had no control, and though he failed at once to awaken the sympathies of his countrymen for the works of his great master, his confidence in their future popularity was unshaken, and when the time to which he had looked forward did arrive, his aid was promptly rendered to assist in their production. He was one of the earliest members of the Philharmonic Society, and for many years one of its conductors. His compositions were marked by the features of his character

"He mark'd in his elegant strain

The graces that glowed in his mind." They are the offspring of a mind naturally susceptible of everything that was graceful, strengthened by the power of knowledge and enriched with the resources of art. Music was with him a passion and a language, rather than a profession. He loved it for itself, and in every true votary of it he welcomed a friend and a brother. (Gentleman's Magazine; Information received from Mr. T. F. Walmisley and Mr. Goss; Personal Knowledge.)

E. T.

ATWOOD, GEORGE, fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, was born in 1745, took the degree of A.B. in 1769, died in 1807. We can find no recorded details of his life. Atwood's writings are:-1. "A Treatise on the Rectilinear Motion of Bodies," Cambridge, 1784, 4to. This is a very laboured work, embracing much more than the title would suggest, and written with a strong effort to preserve both the form and the reality of ancient rigour. It contains the first account of the machine since called by the name of Atwood, by which the laws of simply-accelerated motion are experimentally verified. This work exercised much

influence on the studies of the university in which it appeared. 2. "Analysis of a Course of Lectures on the Principles of Natural Philosophy, read in the University of Cambridge," London, 1784, 8vo.; a work of no pretension, but much utility. 3. "A Dissertation on the Construction of Arches" (followed by a Supplement), London, 1801, 4to. This is the pure statical theory of arches (without friction), and, until very recently, was the most elaborate separate treatise on the subject: that theory carries Atwood's name with it almost as much as the celebrated machine. Atwood was a useful teacher, and a sound mathematician. His writings are now obsolete, but his excellent mode of measuring and illustrating the effects of constant acceleration will preserve his name. A. De M.

ATWOOD, THOMAS, who is stated to have been formerly chief judge of the island of Dominica, and afterwards of the Bahamas, published in 1791 an octavo volume of nearly 300 pages, entitled "The History of the Island of Dominica," which contains, according to the title-page, a description of its situation, extent, climate, mountains, rivers, and natural productions, and an account of the civil government, trade, laws, customs, and manners of the different inhabitants of that island, of its conquest by the French, and its subsequent restoration to the British dominion. He is also said to have published, in 1790, an ill-written pamphlet entitled "Observations on the True Method of Treatment and Usage of the Negro Slaves in the British West India Islands." Of his personal history we find no particulars, excepting that he died in the King's Bench prison, at an advanced age, and broken down by misfortune, on the 27th of May, 1793. (Gentleman's Magazine, Ixiii. 576; Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain (published in 1798), i. 22.) J. T. S.

ATWOOD, WILLIAM, a constitutional writer and political controversialist of the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. He had been chief justice of New York, but at what time is not distinctly known. The first work attributed to him was a defence of the early authority of parliament, called "Jani Anglorum Facies Nova" (erroneously entered by Watt "Jus Anglorum," &c.), printed anonymously in 1680. It was severely attacked in the "Introduction to the Old English History," by Brady, whose great learning in the sources of British history made him a powerful advocate of the prerogative. Atwood is supposed to have been the author of a rejoinder called "Jus Anglorum ab antiquo," and to have written another book against Brady, called "Argumentum Anti-Normanicum; or an Argument proving from Ancient Histories and Records, that William Duke of Normandy made no absolute Conquest of Eng