Various conductors have contributed their share towards the musical development of the [Handel and Haydn] Society.

Mr. Charles Horn, the English song-writer, was, I believe, imported in order to bring out the oratorio of Elijah. I think he was followed by John L. Hatton. This gentleman was a very fine musician and composer, an excellent pianist, and, mirable dictu, an exceptionally fine, unctuous singer of comic songs.

Think of it, classicists of the present day,— the director of the Handel and Haydn Society a famous singer of comic songs ! I can assure my readers, though, that when Mr. Hatton sang The Little Fat Man, Bluebeard, or The Jolly Young Oysterman (words by Oliver Wendell Holmes, music by Hatton), he satisfied very largely the aesthetic tastes of the day. It is also to be remembered that there are comic songs and comic songs. Those Mr. Hatton sang were distinctly musical, with piano accompaniments like those by Franz or Grieg.