Possibly his best-known song has been his "Could Ye Come Back to Me, Douglas," which Mrs. Craik called the best of all her poem's many settings. Only Marston's later piano pieces are really _klaviermaessig_. So fine a work as his "Gavotte in B Minor" has no need to consider the resources of the modern instrument. It has a color scheme of much originality, though it is marred by over-repetition. "A Night in Spain" is a dashing reminiscence, not without Spanish spirit, and an "Album Leaf" is a divertissement of contagious enthusiasm. [Illustration: Autograph of G.W. Marston] Ariel's songs, from "The Tempest," are given a piano interpretation that reaches a high plane. There is a storm prologue which suggests, in excellent harmonies, the distant mutter of the storm rather than a piano-gutting tornado. "Full Fathoms Five Thy Father Lies" is a reverie of wonderful depth and originality, with a delicious variation on the good old-fashioned cadence. Thence it works up into an immensely powerful close. A dance, "Foot it Featly," follows. It is sprightly, and contains a fetching cadenza. One of the most prolific writers of American song is Clayton Johns. He is almost always pleasing and polished. While he is not at all revolutionary, he has a certain individuality of ease, and lyric quality without storm or stress of passion. Thus his settings of seven "Wanderlieder" by Uhland have all the spirit of the road except ruggedness. His setting of "Du bist wie eine Blume" is extremely tender and sweet. Two of Johns' best successes have been settings of Egyptian subjects: "Were I a Prince Egyptian" and Arlo Bates' fine lyric, "No Lotus Flower on Ganges Borne." The latter is a superb song of unusual fire, with a strong effect at the end, the voice ceasing at a deceptive cadence, while the accompaniment sweeps on to its destiny in the original key. He has also found a congenial subject in Austin Dobson's "The Rose and the Gardener." He gets for a moment far from its florid grace in "I Looked within My Soul," which has an unwonted bigness, and is a genuine _Lied_. In later years Johns' songs have been brought out in little albums, very artistically got up, especially for music (which has been heinously printed, as a rule, in this country). These albums include three skilfully written "English Songs," and three "French Songs," "Soupir" taking the form of melodic recitative. Opus 19 is a group of "Wonder Songs," which interpret Oliver Herford's quaint conceits capitally. Opus 26 collects nine songs, of which "Princess Pretty Eyes" is fascinatingly archaic. It is good to see him setting two such remotely kindred spirits as Herrick and Emily Dickinson. The latter has hardly been discovered by composers, and the former is too much neglected.