The German song looks back twice in its short course—that is weak! The English song plants its feet firmly—then rushes to the point, without swerving an eyelash. It says in music— “Up, boys, and at them!” Bravo! Thomas Arne. This song, “Rule, Britannia,” completes a masque, called _Alfred_, written by Thomson and Mallett, and composed by Arne. It was first performed in August, 1740, on a stage erected in the beautiful grounds at Clieveden, in Buckinghamshire—then the residence of Frederick Prince of Wales, now the home of an American millionaire—where a _fête_ had been arranged to commemorate the Accession of George I., and to celebrate the birth of Princess Augusta. Five years later _Alfred_ was given in London, at Drury Lane, for the benefit of Mrs. Arne. It seems specially appropriate that Arne should have been the composer of “Rule, Britannia.” The earliest associations of his childhood must have been connected with the home of the great Admiral, the Commander of the _Britannia_, who lived almost next door to his father’s shop, and doubtless the boy often peeped in through the open doorway at the grand staircase, of which he will have heard that its beams once formed part of the wooden walls of England. It is possible that he may have lived in this house himself at a much later date, for in 1774 it passed into the hands of David Low, and was opened by him as a family hotel, the first establishment of that kind in England. But if Arne ever lived there it was only for a short time, for he died on March 5th, 1778, at his house in Bow Street, which he had only occupied for four months and a half. On the early editions of his _New Favourite Songs_, as also on the _Winter Amusements_, there is the announcement that they are “to be had of the author at his house in the Piazza, next the Church, Covent Garden”; but there is no mention of his name as a householder in the rate-books of St. Paul’s, from 1760 till 1777-8, when, as I have said, he rented a house in Bow Street for a short time before his death. One of the innovations for which we have reason to be grateful to Thomas Arne was the introduction of female voices into oratorio choruses, an experiment which was tried by him for the first time at a performance of his _Judith_ at Covent Garden on February 26th, 1773. This oratorio had been performed at Stratford-on-Avon in the quaint old church in which Shakespeare was buried, on the occasion of the Jubilee festivities organised by Garrick in 1769. On the second day of that festival an Ode, written by Garrick and set to music by Arne, was given, the actor-poet designating the composer as “the first musical genius of this country.”