31 it tr.
Songs for a Winter Night. By Edward Francis Fitzwilliam, Musical Director of the _Haymarket Theatre.
The composer of these songs, who is the son of the late Mrs. Fitz- william, is known as the author of several pleasing and popular ballads, in which there is a vein of natural and expressive English melody. In the present collection there is much that is good ; but the author, as he be- comes more ambitious, becomes more artificial. He has fallen into the common error of being afraid to be simple, and has adopted the Teutonic crudities of the day. 'Pretty ideas are marred by abrupt and unrelative modulations ; and when the entire melody is good it is loaded with a laboured and perplexing accompaniment. For instance, in " The Re- concilement," the verses (by Sheffield Duke of Buckingham) are united to a simple air in the old English style, with a puzzling, syncopated ac- companiment, whichis quite out of character. The best of these songs are the simplest. " Give thee good morrow, busy bee "—(Miss Mitford's words)—" Maudit Printemps " (Beranger)—" Come, brothers, come" (Korner)—" If you become a nun, dear" (Leigh Hunt)—in style, melody, and accompaniment, are unexceptionable.
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