We aim at establishing some settled Notion of what is Musick, as recovering from Neglect and Want very many Families who depend upon it, at making all Foreigners who pretend to succeed in England to learn the Language of it as we our selves have done, and not be so insolent as to expect a whole Nation, a refined and learned Nation, should submit to learn them.  In a word, Mr. SPECTATOR, with all Deference and Humility, we hope to behave ourselves in this Undertaking in such a Manner, that all English Men who have any Skill in Musick may be furthered in it for their Profit or Diversion by what new Things we shall produce; never pretending to surpass others, or asserting that any Thing which is a Science is not attainable by all Men of all Nations who have proper Genius for it:  We say, Sir, what we hope for is not expected will arrive to us by contemning others, but through the utmost Diligence recommending ourselves. We are, SIR, Your most humble Servants, Thomas Clayton, Nicolino Haym, Charles Dieupart.

[Footnote 1:  Christopher Rich, of whom Steele wrote in No. 12 of the Tatler as Divito, who

has a perfect art in being unintelligible in discourse and uncomeatable in business.  But he, having no understanding in his polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder-dancers, rope-dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakespeare’s heroes and Jonson’s humorists.]

[Footnote 2:  Thomas Clayton (see note on p. 72) had set Dryden’s Alexanders Feast to music at the request of Steele and John Hughes; but its performance at his house in York Buildings was a failure.  Clayton had adapted English words to Italian airs in the drama written for him by Motteux, of Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus, and called it his own opera.  Steele and Addison were taken by his desire to nationalize the opera, and put native music to words that were English and had literature in them.  After Camilla at Drury Lane, produced under the superintendence of Nicolino Haym, Addison’s Rosamond was produced, with music by Clayton and Mrs. Tofts in the part of Queen Eleanor.  The music killed the piece on the third night of performance.  The coming of Handel and his opera of Rinaldo set Mr. Clayton aside, but the friendship of Steele and Addison abided with him, and Steele seems to have had a share in his enterprises at York Buildings.  Of his colleagues who join in the signing of this letter, Nicola Francesco Haym was by birth a Roman, and resident in London as a professor of music.  He published two good operas of sonatas for two violins and a bass, and joined Clayton and Dieupart in the service of the opera, until Handel’s success superseded them.  Haym was also a man of letters, who published two quartos upon Medals, a notice of rare Italian Books, an edition of Tasso’s Gerusalemme, and two tragedies of his own.  He wrote a History of Music in Italian, and issued proposals for its publication in English, but had no success.  Finally he turned picture collector, and was employed in that quality by Dr. Mead and Sir Robert Walpole.