His father’s employer, passing the house at a time when the elder Crotch was absent from work on the plea of indisposition, heard the organ, and fancied that his workman was idle instead of ill; to convince himself, he went in, and found little Master William performing, and his brother blowing the bellows. The marvel spread, and attracted such crowds of auditors, that from that time the hours of his performance were obliged to be limited. As he grew older his musical attainments rapidly increased, while at the same time he discovered symptoms of a genius for drawing, almost equal to that which he had already displayed for music. When he was twelve years old he did the duty of organist at several chapels in Cambridge, whence he removed to Oxford, with a view to entering the church; but he afterwards resumed the musical profession, and was appointed organist of Christ Church, in 1790. In 1797, he became professor of music in that university; and in 1799, obtained the degree of doctor of music. On the establishment of the Royal Academy, in 1823, he was nominated Principal of that institution, but retired from the office before his death. Dr. Crotch’s great work is the oratorio of “Palestine,” the poetry of which is the prize poem of Bishop Heber. He was also the author of several anthems, and other pieces of sacred music. His death occurred suddenly, at the dinner-table, on the 29th of September, 1847, in the seventy-third year of his age, at the residence of his son, the Rev. W. R. Crotch, Master of the Grammar School at Taunton, where he had spent the later years of his life. There are two points worthy of notice connected with the name and works of this great man. The country has raised no monument in any of its cathedrals or churches to his memory, and his greatest work, “Palestine,” is an oratorio almost entirely neglected. May it not be possible for the “Old City” that gave him birth to set an example to the rest of the musical world, by attention to these facts?