William Boyce, one of the most gifted of English composers of the eighteenth century, was born in 1710, and was, therefore, about twenty-eight years of age when the oratorio "Saul" was produced. That he completely fell under the new influence is quite apparent, as little examination of his music, dating from that time, is sufficient to shew. Not only did he allow it to affect his own work, but it carried him to the absolutely indefensible point of taking one of Purcell's greatest compositions, and revising and adding to it, in order to bring it into conformity with the great school which had arisen. There are two kinds of imitation, conscious and unconscious. Such an act as this can only belong to the former. From this date may be said to have commenced that system of imitation of foreign music that has been the bane of English musicians ever since. However unconscious it may have, and doubtless has been, its effect has been equally disastrous. Imitation never made art and never will. The imitator may arrive at temporary distinction, but future generations will not recognise him. He will be, merely, a painted figure in a painted sepulchre of plagiarism. Happily there were yet composers, chiefly cathedral organists, who clung to English Church tradition, and among whose work occasional glimpses of its genius can be found. This fact did not escape the eyes of so keen and accomplished an observer as Vincent Novello, and to this remarkable man the country is under a great debt of recognition. An Italian by blood, he was born in England, and spent the greater part of his life here. He was organist in turn of several London churches, and thus gained the opportunity to learn and appreciate such music of the early English school as he found in use. So interested did he become, that he visited various cathedral libraries and, with the permission of the authorities, copied much of the ancient music of which they were the repositories. This he carefully edited and published, after transposing the parts written in clefs, with which the public are generally unacquainted. He thus furnished the means of bringing into general use much of the splendid music that had hitherto been confined to the services of the cathedral, for which it had been originally written. He was, practically, the founder of the world-famed publishing house of Novello and Co., and it is an interesting fact that this great firm has never deviated from its early traditions, since it is at the present day as emphatically as it ever was at any period of its existence, the home of all that is best in English Church music. The founding of the firm, if an event of moment to the public at large, was one of still greater import to the musician, for it caused a commercial value to be attached to his work that, previously, had little more than a sentimental one.