(To be continued.)

CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS.

NEW SERIES.-No. 22.

ARTHUR SULLIVAN.

ENGLAND has given to the world of art comparatively little in the way of music. But England is only just awakening to an artistic consciousness in certain respects, while, curiously enough, the mechanical supremacy which has been hers so long is now becoming less conspicuously manifest. Perhaps, when we attain our full beatific vision of beauty, we shall have put away many of the old qualities for which the sturdy Englishman has been noted; and, like the swan, shall come to our music only when we are going to die. However, John Bull is not yet quite so far gone as to think of making his will, and waning away to slow music; and indeed the kind of music which is a native product is not at all like the pathetic swan-song, but rather the reverse. Mr. Sullivan's music, for instance, and especially his recent music, is rather the voice of a humorous person who persists in enjoying living, and is fond of having a quip with his friends. (6 H.M.S. Pinafore certainly seems to suggest rude health rather than sublimated æsthetics or bardic forewarnings; and yet-one ominous fact shines out with weird prominence even in the matter of "H.M.S. Pinafore." The ancient decaying races of the world are those in whom politeness is the most conspicuous quality. The captain of that famous vessel has a remarkable and exemplary gift of politeness, quite foreign to the recorded character of those stentorian old salts who won our victories for us. But our subject is leading us too deep into political economy; we have to follow the career of Mr. Sullivan, and not to let out line for deep-sea soundings into the future and the effects of art.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan was born May 13, 1842, his father being bandmaster at Sandhurst, and after Kneller Hall, the Military School of Music, was founded, in 1857, professor there of the bass brass instruments. Arthur was thus brought up to music. When a very small child he went into the Chapel Royal, under Helmore. Here his sweet and charming voice brought him into notice, and was a marked attraction, which people flocked to the Chapel Royal to hear. While there he used to compose anthems, &c., thus evidencing his natural bent.

What gave the boy his real advance both as regards musical equipment and prestige was the Mendelssohn scholarship. A fund had been raised for the purpose of creating a memorial scholarship to Mendelssohn. Sullivan was the first scholar elected, and accordingly, after studying a short time at the Royal Academy of Music, with Sterndale Bennett and John Goss, he went to Leipzig, to enjoy the highest musical advantages. While there, he was under Moscheles, Hauptmann, Plaidy, the old pianofortist, and others, and returned at the end of 1861. He did not come back empty-handed, but brought with him his "Tempest " music -an overture, incidental music, dances, &c., representative of Shakespeare's play of the "Tempest."

The work was first played in this country in April, 1862. Chorley, who was musical critic of the Athenæum, took up the young composer at once. His words may be quoted from the Athenæum of April 12, 1862, as showing how undoubted was his recognition, and how candid. his welcome of the new musician :

"Crystal Palace.-The Tempest' music, by Mr. A. Sullivan. Last week our friend at Leipzig sent us an account of Herr Taubert's music to The Tempest.' We have now the pleasant task of recording the very remarkable and legitimate success gained at the Crystal Palace this day week by the illustrations to the same drama, written by Mr. Arthur Sullivan. It was one of those events which mark an epoch in a man's life; and, what is of more universal consequence, it may mark an epoch in English music, or we shall be greatly disappointed. Years on years. have elapsed since we heard a work by so young an artist so full of promise, so full of fancy, showing so much conscientiousness, so much skill, and so few references to any model elect.

"Though 'The Tempest' has tempted many and many another composer-Purcell, Arne, Rolle, Mendelssohn, Halévy-having been thus illustrated the most frequently of Shakespeare's plays, we suspect (Romeo and Juliet' making possibly the exception), it is still, we think, a difficult subject for music; inasmuch as, in spite of the exquisite care and great cost with which it has been put on the stage in late years, is it one of those plays which we the most care to see? When delicate Ariel, the invisible to all save Prospero, must needs be represented by a lady or a child, making painful stage flights on visible wires, much of the poetry of the dream vanishes; and, except there be such a Caliban as Lablache (whose conception of that character, aided by great physical adaptitude, was one of the most remarkable things ever seen upon the stage, though it amounted to merely an opera-sketch), the semi-brute too constantly trenches on the verge of disgust to be acceptable-since few artists can, with the needful rudeness and vigour, combine the restraint, without which such a stage-creation becomes intolerable when set before the eye. Another fact, we think, may be more clearly proved-that the limits within elemental, spiritual, and elfin music are restricted, to say