The _pretty boy_ was undoubtedly Pelham Humphreys. Clifford's book of anthems, published in 1664, the year after the incident just recorded, contains the words of five anthems, "composed by Pelham Humphrey, one of the Children of His Majesties Chappel;" and in Boyce's _Cathedral Music_ we find Humphreys' anthem, "Have mercy upon me," the words of which are taken from the fifty-first psalm. There can be little doubt, therefore, that this was the very anthem heard and approved by Pepys. In 1664 the king sent Humphreys to Paris,[17] to study under Lully; and he also probably went to Italy. During his absence the king gave him an appointment as one of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal; and on his return to London in October, 1667, he was "sworn in" to the place. He speedily produced several new compositions, sacred and secular, by command of the king. Pepys' entry in his Diary for November 15, 1667, is very quaint. He says, "Home, and there find, as I expected, Mr. Cæsar and little Pelham Humphreys, lately returned from France, and is an absolute Monsieur, as full of form and confidence and vanity, and disparages everything and everybody's skill but his own. But to hear how he laughs at all the king's musick here, at Blagrave and others, that they cannot keep time or tune, nor understand anything: and at Grebus,[18] the Frenchman, the king's master of musick, how he understands nothing, nor can play on any instrument, and so cannot compose: and that he will give him a lift out of his place, and that he and the king are mighty great." On the following day, the 16th, Pepys notes that there was a performance of Pelham Humphreys' musick given before the king at Whitehall. That Humphreys was an admirable musician, possessed of uncommon genius, is easily discernible from the numerous compositions of his which have come down to us. He took as his models Lulli and Carissimi; but fortunately Purcell's genius was stronger and more emphatic than that of his master: had it been otherwise he would have become a mere copyist; but, as we shall hereafter see, Purcell looked to Italy for good musical models, and was not afraid to express his dislike to the frivolity of the French school. There exists a very interesting manuscript anthem in Purcell's handwriting, which was originally composed by Humphreys, but afterwards altered and improved by Purcell. Poor Humphreys had but a short career, or we may be sure he would have accomplished greater things than he did. Two years before he died he married a very beautiful lady, who followed him to his grave in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey in 1674, he being only twenty-seven years of age.