The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-04 00:00:00

MR. BULLAIL

(From the Guardian.)

For some time past our readers may have observed
notices in these columns of the progress of Mr.
Hullah's affairs since the disastrous fire at St. Mar-
tin's-hall, which happened last September ; and
we are glad to see that a committee of gentlemen,
with Mr. Dickens at their head, have taken the
matter in hand, and are collecting subscriptions
with a view to assisting Mr. Hullah in his future
course. In these days of exaggerated reputations
and spurious testimonials it is a satisfaction to
think of a reputation so well deserved as Mr. Hul-
lah's, and to see that the exertions making to aid
him are conducted in a quiet and sensible spirit.
Few men of our time, in truth, have done more
for the real good of their kind than Mr. Hullah.
He has aided most materially to diffuse the present
wide-spread taste for good music. He has been one
of the chief instruments for obtaining the public
acquiescence in the incorporation of music as a
necessary branch of all good popular education.
In these matters, however, although his share in
the work has been very great, he has worked with
other men, and done as other men have done. But
he stands almost alone, we might say quite alone,
in having provided for large masses of people the
means of pursuing a refined and noble study—of
passing their time not only innocently, but to their
own great and lasting improvement—of meeting
on a common ground whereon distinctions of rank
have no place, and differences of education or
opinion are for the time forgotten. Not only in Lon-
don, where his classes have become a recognised
and permanent institution, but throughout the
country, wherever there are musical societies or
choral meetings, his influence has been and is daily
felt with a strength which time only increases. Nor
will any man who reflects on what the English
people are, and on what were and are still their
common amusements and modes of spending time,
deny the great services of Mr. Hullah, or think
lightly of the gratitude due to him from all who love
their country or care for their kind. All those, too,
who care for the beauty of the public worship of
Almighty God, who feel how much of its beauty
and solemnity-, and, by consequence, how much of
its effect on men's hearts, and its influence on men's
lives, depends on music, will feel that they owe to
Mr. Hullah a deep and peculiar debt.
In a more purely musical point of view we can-
not help feeling that much is owing to him. St.
Martin's-hall has been the place where many a
singer now holding a great place in his profession
has first had an opportunity of being heard. For
new men and unfamiliar music, whether new or
old, St. Martin's-hall has been . a place of hearty
welcome and generous and intelligent trial. If we
mistake not, more than one of Mendelssohn's lesser
works, and several of the lovely but generally un-
known works of Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Bach,
and Beethoven, have first (in our time) been heard
within those walls. And many living composers
owe to Mr. Hullah the opportunity (which in music
is everything) of getting their works well rendered
and fairly heard by large and appreciating audiences.
We believe, indeed, that the profession at large feel
and acknowledge this, and that matey of them have
shown it by expressions of sympathy and offers of
assistance characteristically delicate and generous.
Such a work as Mr. Hullah has for many years
been carrying on requires obviously a large build-
ing and considerable funds ; for, unfortunately, no
man can command either the attendance or the ap-
plause of the musical public—a public more diffi-
cult to interest and more curiously fastidious than
any other. Experiments of new works are often
very costly ; even reproductions of less known old
ones are seldom unattended with loss; and a person
engaged in a great establishment like St. Martin's-
hall, heavily mortgaged as it appears, and managed
on the thoroughly generous and liberal principles
on which Mr. Hullah always acted, often fails to
realise even that moderate reward with which
such persons are generally well content. It has
been so, we regret to find, with Mr. Hullah ;
and so difficult and unsatisfactory had his posi-
tion become that the fire which destroyed
his property, although in itself largely
covered by insurances, yet practically became the
occasion, though not perhaps the cause, of his ap-
pearance in the Court of Bankruptcy. We need
hardly say that, as he appeared in it, so he has
just issued from it—without a whisper to his dis-
credit.
Here, then, is a man of high character and great
abilities who devotes himself heartily and with no
selfish aims to the spread of a great and beautiful
science amongst the people. He is eminently suc-
cessf's . He exercises a large influence and does a
vast, amount of good. Ho works hard for the best