"Then meet me next Saturday at five-thirty at St. James's Hall, when
we will have dinner at the Round, Catch, and Cannon Club and listen to
some of their glees."
Saturday came, and we met again at the Round, Catch, and Cannon
Club--the oldest glee club in the country, being now more than eighty
years old. Dinner over--in the immediate vicinity of Mr. Lloyd and
myself sat Sir Benjamin Baker, Mr. W. Horsley, R.A., Signor Randegger,
Mr. N. Vert, and Dr. Scott, Mr. Lloyd's medical man--books of glees
were brought round and we sat and listened to the sweetest of themes,
most admirably rendered. No one is more attentive than Edward Lloyd--no
one more hearty in his approval.
"'Tis Morn" is the first glee, and Mr. Lloyd reminds me he has sung it
many a time. A selection of T. Cooke's follows, and we listen to the
stirring--
Strike, strike the lyre! Let music tell
The blessings spring shall scatter round.
Fragrance shall float along the gale,
And opening flow'rets paint the ground.
How pure and sweet sounds "By Celia's Arbour." Not a note is lost by
those whose happiness it is to listen--
Tell her they are not drops of night,
But tears of sorrow shed by me;
and whilst it is being sung I cannot help noticing a white-headed
gentleman opposite me who rests his head on one hand, so that his face
can barely be seen, and bends over the glee-book, and never moves
except once, to look up in reverent thought. It is W. Horsley, the
Royal Academician. Yet another is sung--an ode for five voices. The
painter still keeps his head bowed. I looked at the open book before me
and read: "Composed by W. Horsley, 19th February, 1776."
Then Mr. Horsley tells us how well he remembers his father writing "By
Celia's Arbour."
"I remember how Mendelssohn used to come," he said, "and sit for
hours in the summer evenings in the house where I have lived for the
last seventy years. He said that my father's compositions were the
most perfect of their kind he had ever heard. He took some copies of
'Celia's Arbour' home with him, and soon after wrote to my father to
say that he had heard the glee sung amongst the villagers by _forty
voices_!"