To conclude that Shakespeare must have been a practical musician, because he wrote beautiful poetry on the charms and power of music, would be as bold as to assume from certain passages in his dramas that he was originally a lawyer, a soldier, a tinker or a horse-dealer. Indeed, regarded as a critical opinion, his beautiful sonnet on Dowland is less valuable than the judgment of Dr. Burney, who remarks: "After being at pains of scoring several of Dowland's compositions, I have been equally disappointed and astonished at his scanty abilities in counterpoint, and the great reputation he acquired with his contemporaries, which has been courteously continued to him either by indolence or ignorance of those who have had occasion to speak of him, and who took it for granted that his title to fame, as a profound musician, was well founded."[58] John Bull, another English musician of some reputation, was a virtuoso on the harpsichord and organ. Perhaps the circumstance of his playing these instruments kept him aloof from the English Comedians on the continent; otherwise his restless and unsettled life would have fitted him well for their companionship. Born in Somersetshire, about the middle of the sixteenth century, John Bull, in the year 1601, made his first journey to Holland, France and Germany, where his organ performances, and even his compositions, found admirers. Having returned to England, he went, in 1607, a second time to the continent with the object, it is recorded, of restoring his shattered health,--or perhaps, as Dr. Burney surmises, to improve his shattered financial condition. He died in Germany. Sir John Hawkins, in his 'History of Music,' gives two Riddle Canons by John Bull, written in the shape of a triangle. The anecdote about the marvellous skill of this musician, exhibited by his adding forty more parts to a song composed in forty parts,[59] is so absurd as hardly to provoke a smile from anyone acquainted with the theory of music. John Bull has also been praised for having composed some pieces for the Virginal so difficult that even pianists of the present day are startled by his rapid passages in thirds and sixths. But, considering how rude and unmelodious these contrivances are, he would deserve greater praise if his music were easily executable, impressive, and better suited for the instrument for which it was composed, than is the case. If R. Clark's statement, according to which John Bull was the composer of the English National Anthem, were correct, he would have a greater claim to consideration than he deserves at present. The composers of old popular tunes are seldom known; it is therefore only proper to regard the whole nation as the composer of its principal national tune, if its origin has not been definitively ascertained; and in this sense it is perhaps right to assign the composition of the English National Anthem to John Bull.