The year of Cromwell's death (1658) witnessed the birth of England's greatest composer. In a small back street of Westminster, St. Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, there was living at this time a clever musician called Henry Purcell. At the Restoration he was made Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and in this capacity he sang at the coronation of Charles II., when, in order to do honour to the occasion, he, in common with his colleagues, received "four yards of fine scarlet cloth to be made into a gown." He was also elected singing-man of Westminster Abbey, and Master of the Chorister Boys, as well as music-copyist. This last was deemed a very honourable position, and owing to the wholesale destruction of church music-books during the Commonwealth, it was no sinecure; for it must be remembered that in those days there were no cheap editions of printed music, and every composition had to be laboriously transcribed by hand, printed copies being very rare and expensive. Little is known of the private life of Henry Purcell, senior, beyond the fact that his wife's name was Elizabeth, and that he was the father of the greater Henry Purcell, the child whose birth occurred in the very year in which his father's fortunes began to look up; and in which, by the accession of Charles II., there was given to music an impetus that was significantly foreshadowed by the advent of England's greatest musician. Beneath the grey walls of Westminster Abbey little Henry passed the first years of his life, the sounds of music constantly in his ears and in his heart, and so well had his sweet baby voice been trained that, at the death of his father, when he was but six years old, he was admitted as a chorister of the Chapel Royal. His father's brother Thomas, also a gifted musician, henceforth took care of the boy and superintended his education with watchful tenderness. His teacher at this time was Captain Cooke, an old man, who had belonged to the chapel of Charles I., and who, on the breaking out of civil war, had turned soldier and fought on the Royalist side. He had won a captain's commission, and now, as a reward for his loyalty, he was appointed by Charles II. Master of the Children of the Royal Chapel. Many of the anthems composed by Purcell, and still in use in our cathedrals, date from this time, and he was only twelve years old when he wrote the ode which he called "The Address of the Children of the Chapel Royal to the King and their Master, Captain Cooke, on his Majesties Birthday, A.D. 1670, composed by Master Purcell, one of the Children of the said Chapel." At sixteen our composer became a pupil of the famous Dr. John Blow, one of the greatest musicians of this time; and now his genius developed with marvellous rapidity.