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Dante and Petrarch went before any good prose writer in Italy; Corneille and Racine brought on the fine age of prose compositions in France; and we had in England, not only Chaucer and Spenser, but Shakspeare and Milton, while our attempts in history or science were yet in their infancy; and deserve our attention, only for the sake of the matter they treat.

He made long stays in Paris and London, where he was for a time leader of the opera band, and produced an opera of his own, also publishing a number of his compositions. In 1770 he was at Turin, where he remained to the end of his life as teacher, conductor, and composer. Felice Giardini, another pupil of Somis, was born at Turin and became one of the foremost violinists in Europe.

"In short, the compositions of Rossini, in whom this music is personified, with those of the writers who are more or less of his school, to me seem worthy at best to collect a crowd in the street round a grinding organ, as an accompaniment to the capers of a puppet show. I even prefer French music, and I can say no more.

Instrumental music during this period being merely the accompaniment of vocal music, and vocal music being completely subordinated to words, the singer being also the poet, chanting his own compositions and making the lengths of his notes agree with the feet of his verses, there unavoidably arose a tiresome uniformity of measure, which, as Dr. Burney says, "no resources of melody could disguise."

A draughtsman a Rembrandt, if there were one in our day might have conceived of one of his finest compositions from seeing these children of misery, in artless attitudes, and all silent.

At this epoch, Madame Sand often heard a musician, one of the friends who had greeted Chopin with the most enthusiastic joy upon his arrival at Paris, speak of him. She heard him praise his poetic genius even more than his artistic talent. She was acquainted with his compositions, and admired their graceful tenderness.

There is not too much of it abroad; and I care very little how it is acquired, if only it is acquired. The only way in which these amateurs can be tiresome is if they insist upon reading their compositions aloud in a domestic circle, or if they request one to read a published book and give them a candid opinion.

With this view I wrote the "Ancient Mariner," and was preparing, among other poems, the "Dark Ladie" and "Christabel." But the number of Mr. Wordsworth's poems was so much greater that my compositions appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. With many parts of Mr.

A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen compositions of the cook-book; yet when we ask for it, what burnt, shriveled abortions are presented to us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours out two dozen of different sizes, some having in them three times the amount of matter of others.

The next year Raff introduced him to Liszt, who became so enthusiastic over his compositions that he got him the honor of playing his first piano suite before the formidable Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik Verein, which accorded him a warm reception. The following years were spent in successful concert work, till 1884, when MacDowell settled down to teaching and composing in Wiesbaden.