It is but natural to find the old Italian writers showering down laudatory adjectives on Palestrina. Undoubtedly Palestrina and Di Lasso, whose careers are almost exactly contemporaneous, were the two chief composers of the 16th century, and it is equally undoubted that of these two Palestrina was much the more earnest and serious; but one may receive with some degree of caution such phrases as "the light and glory of music," "the Prince of Music," and "the Father of Music," all of which may be found in the early commentaries on his works. It must be borne in mind that Palestrina lived at a time when music was still largely a mathematical science, when the art (so far as it was an art) tended almost wholly towards the intellectual, and when the emotional side, which is so important an element with the moderns, was scarcely recognized. It is an odd coincidence that the very year in which the two great composers of intellectual polyphony died (1594) saw the birth of the emotional school in the shape of the first opera, "Dafne." We must not search for great emotional display in the modern sense, even in the "Lamentations" or the "Stabat Mater" of Palestrina, but if we judge his works from the standard of dignity and a pure leading of the voices even in the most intricate passages, we shall find them to be most perfect models, and it was through the complex progressions of the old counterpoint that our modern style was evolved; Palestrina and Di Lasso were the ploughmen who made the harvest of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Wagner, possible. The lack of definite rhythm (for the ancient counterpoint was the least rhythmic expression of music) is sometimes a stumbling-block in the way of modern appreciation of some of Palestrina's work, but the devout student of Bach will soon find himself an admirer of the pure and lofty vein of the older master. Krause, the historian, says: "I am convinced that this school possesses a permanent value for all time. The greatest art connoisseurs of the new school pay the greatest homage to the Palestrina style." Thibaut describes Palestrina as deeper than Di Lasso, and as such a master of the old church modes and of the pure school (in which the triad was the foundation of everything and the seventh chords were not admitted) that calmness and repose are to be found in a greater degree in his works than in the compositions of any other composer. Palestrina has been called the "Homer of Music," and there is something in his stately style that makes the phrase a fitting one. [Illustration: PALESTRINA. From a portrait by Schnorr, engraved by Amsler and re-engraved by Deblois. This portrait has evidently been suggested by the Vatican portrait. (See frontispiece.) Authentic portraits of Palestrina are extremely rare.]