* * * * *

During these ten years several children were born to Purcell.  He had six children altogether.  Four died while still babies; two, Edward and Frances, survived him.  Edward lived till 1740, leaving a son; Frances married one Welsted, or Welstead, and died in 1724.  Her daughter died two years later.  Before the end of the eighteenth century the line of Purcell’s descendants seems to have terminated.  In 1682 Purcell became an organist of the Chapel Royal, whilst remaining organist of Westminster Abbey.  As has already been said, the musicians of this age were pluralists—­they had to be in order to earn a decent living, for the salaries were anything but large, and punctuality in payment was not a feature.  In 1684 there was a competition at the Temple Church, not between organists, but between organ-builders.  The authorities got two builders to set up each an organ, and decided which was the better by the simple plan of hearing them played by different organists and deciding which sounded the better.  To any but a legal mind the affair would seem to have resolved itself mainly into a competition between organ-players; but we know how absolutely lost to all sense of justice, fairness, reason and common sense the legal mind is.  So Purcell played for Father Smith, and inevitably the organ built by Father Smith was thought the finer.  This easy way of solving a difficult problem, though it has so much to recommend it to the legal mind, has fallen into desuetude, and is abandoned nowadays, even in that home of absurdities, the Temple.  For the coronation of James II., Purcell superintended the setting-up of an extra or special organ in the Abbey; and for this he was granted L34 12s. out of the secret-service money.  In 1689, at the coronation of the lucky gentleman who superseded James, no such allowance appears to have been made; and Purcell admitted the curious to the organ-loft, making a charge and putting it in his pocket.  This was too much for the clergy.  They regarded the money as theirs, and as Mr. Gladstone, that stout Churchman, said, the Church will give up rather its faith than its money.  The Abbey authorities never thought of giving up either, but they threatened Purcell with terrible penalties unless he gave up the money.  Almost with a pistol at his head they asked him to give up his money or his post.  How the squabble ended no man knows; the conjecture that he ‘refunded’ the money—­i.e., gave it to those it did not belong to—­is unsupported.

These are the only scraps of veracious history that come down to us; the other choice bits I take to be exercises in prosaic romance.

CHAPTER IV