Henry Cary Shuttleworth: a Memoir. Edited by George W. E.
Russell. (Chapman and Hall. 6s.)—The Life of Professor Shuttleworth suggests various difficult questions, not the least important of them being the proper function of music in devo- tional services. Professor Shuttleworth held strong opinions on the subject. His church in the City of London (St. Nicholas Cole Abbey) was famous for its oratorios, &c. It is a little startling to find that when the congregation thus collected began to diminish under the influence of rival attractions, the rector approved of such remedies as "engaging a small orchestra, advertising largely, and paragraphing the newspapers freely:' though he would have nothing to do with "star singers." One great danger of music is that it is apt to become an end in itself, another is that there is a perilous confusion of the emotional and spiritual. One cannot help considering these things when the life-work of H. C. Shuttleworth has to be appreciated. Of his high qualities—his zeal, his generosity, his disinterestedness, his sympathy with the weak and suffering—there can be no doubt. We are glad to see them brought out in this volume. But we cannot help saying that it has not been altogether fortunate in its editor. "I have done little more," he writes in the preface, "than collect and arrange the material supplied by the kindness of others." But what follows is his own: "It needs no great knowledge of Cathedrals and dignitaries— their inveterate Conservatism and their suffocating respectability —to divine that such methods as those which Shuttleworth pur- sued would render him an object of profound suspicion in decanal and canonical eyes." Mark, " decanal eyes," and the Dean was R. W. Church.
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