Bolton Cottage, Chelsea. SIR, Mr. GÖDBÉ, with all the adroitness of a posture-master, pirouettes from point to point, and assumes names and positions, as though he were accountable neither for words nor actions. I will, as briefly as possible, reply to those parts of his letter which seem worth my notice. He asserts. I answer. 1st. That ‘Under the Walnut-tree’ was originally written for Mr. M’Keller, of Glasgow. It was not. 2nd. That the subject (his Title states Melody) of my Song is only a slight modification of his Quartett. He does not, by his own notation, show one entire Bar of my composition to be like his. My Song has a totally different Emphasis; and this is a fact not to be overlooked, Emphasis being, I conceive, in Music, what punctuation is in parts of speech. 3rd. That Mr. Pelzer positively declared that there could be no doubt of my composition having been taken from his. Mr. Pelzer denies that ever he made such a statement. When accidentally appealed to, he admitted there was a slight resemblance, but expressed his conviction that this was the effect of accident, not design. Mr. J. Addison and Mr. G. Herbert Rodwell were similarly appealed to by Mr. GÖdbÉ’s publisher. The former gentleman allowed that parts of the 1st and 4th Bar had some affinity, while the latter frankly confessed that he saw no resemblance at all between the two compositions. The passages that do assimilate are common phrases used by everybody; and I am aware of no patent which secures the right of such passages exclusively to Mr. GÖdbÉ. 4th. That I proposed stating on my Song, that his Quartett had been composed first. I could not acknowledge a composition that I had never seen—a thing unborn, that, for aught I knew, had no existence beyond the author’s brain. 5th. That Mr. Duff mentioned to me the name of a Song written by him, but never published, called ‘Ladye Jane,’ before I wrote one bearing the same title; and inclines to the opinion, that he also read to me another Song, entitled ‘The First Green Leaf.’ Mr. Duff never made mention to me of having written any such Song as ‘Ladye Jane’ until after the publication of mine; and declares that he never read to me ‘The First Green Leaf;’ moreover, that Mr. GÖdbÉ has used Mr. Duff’s name without his consent or authority, and that, too, after having been assured by Mr. Duff that no such reading ever took place. So much for Mr. Samuel GÖdbÉ’s veracity. Touching the ‘Isle of Beauty,’ and his friends Messrs. Prowse and Purday, Mr. GÖdbÉ does not condescend to name the ‘identical Song,’ or the ‘Country Music Seller,’ whose coffers were thus likely to overflow from so scrupulous a regard to the laws of copyright. I leave him, therefore, to the full enjoyment of his two City friends, whose testimony and opinion might have some weight, did the question hinge on a tureen of turtle, or pitcher of punch. I beseech him to cultivate the acquaintance of all such good fellows; he might do worse than press their vocal powers in behalf of his Quartett, where, with a ‘merry Christmas, and a happy new year,’ they might stand a chance of obtaining some praise, and a few pence. He never will, nor shall I, get fat by controversy; and taking your hint to be brief, I dismiss Mr. GÖdbÉ and his ‘tangible elements of disputation,’ with a full conviction that he is ever more likely to succeed in finding fault with the works of others than in improving his own. As was said of the critic may be said of him,—He has sifted a dunghill to find two cinders that tally, and bestowed a great deal of pains upon a dirty business. I am, Sir, |
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