"Time was when this work was appraised as a world's masterpiece for ever. As a fact, it affords but one more example of the many that go to prove the rule as to the absurdity of prophesying unless one knows. I would not go so far as some one was heard to go yesterday, who vouchsafed the opinion that even the singers seemed somewhat abashed. That is a gross exaggeration. But it is no exaggeration to say that none of them ... seemed very deeply moved by the extreme placidity and suavity of the phrases once deemed to be of purest gold. Nor, for that matter, did the chorus themselves. The truth is that time has not dealt over kindly with this work." Yet this very work, let it be remembered, was not only the most popular, but practically the single one of its kind written by an Englishman that had ever touched the imagination of the English people. To go still further, it may be said with absolute truth, that it was the most successful sacred work produced in England up to the time of Sir Edward Elgar, since Mendelssohn introduced the "Elijah," at Birmingham in 1846. The inference, which seems to me obvious, is that no work that is not typical of the country from which it emanates possesses those qualities that make for permanence. The amelioration in the position of the native composer, to which we alluded just now, was due to the fact that he had not lost belief in his own powers so far as sacred music was concerned; hence the revival of public interest in this form of art was, naturally, a source of gratification. Unhappily, however, the fact cannot be ignored that instead of pursuing their way on their old lines and traditions, even the most gifted among the English composers gave way to the fatal temptation to try and write on the lines of such a colossal genius as Handel. The power to hurl the thunderbolts of Jove is given to few, and at the time of which we write, there were certainly no Englishmen among that select company. We need but cite one example.