[Having given insertion to Mr. Phillips’s letter concerning the song ‘The Old English Gentleman,’ we feel bound to publish Mr. Charles H. Purday’s answer, if that which replies to nothing can be said to be an answer; and have only to regret being placed in a situation which hardly allows us to decline becoming the medium through which direct charges—whether true or false—are met, not by facts, not even by a bare contradiction, but by calling the author of them ‘a fool.’

Let it be understood that we make ourselves no party in the dispute; we know nothing of the merits of the case, and hope to hear no more of it.]

To the EDITOR of the HARMONICON.

9, Clarendon Square, August 7th, 1833.

SIR,

In reply to Mr. H. Phillips’s erudite epistle, touching ‘The Old English Gentleman’ controversy and ‘The Maid of Llanwellyn’ piracy, I need only quote the words of Solomon, who says, ‘answer a fool according to his folly.’

I am, Sir,
With the most profound respect,
Your very humble Servant,
CHARLES H. PURDAY.

The following was received just in time for insertion.

To the EDITOR of the HARMONICON.

45, High Holborn, August 19th, 1833.

SIR,

As I am the ‘very man’ who, Mr. Phillips says, has been stopped from publishing ‘The Old English Gentleman,’ and who issued the ‘bills and circulars’ respecting ‘The Maid of Llanwellyn,’ I conceive I have a right to be heard in my defence against that person’s false assertions, which I doubt not he would have you and the public believe are true.

First, if the ‘low puff in the shape of an advertisement,’ which I issued, was ‘false from beginning to end,’ how came Mr. Phillips to acknowledge its truth by causing the plates of his pirated copy of ‘The Old English Gentleman’ to be sent to me to be destroyed?

Secondly: I do not envy Mr. Phillips’s object in stating as ‘a fact’ what he knows to be untrue, respecting the sale of my song being suppressed!—and as to my ‘unjustifiable possession’ of the said song, I know of neither courtesy nor law to prevent any man from re-arranging an ‘old chaunt.’

Thirdly: Will Mr. Phillips oblige me by stating from what quarter my brother pirated ‘The Maid of Llanwellyn?’ It certainly could not be from Mr. Phillips; for although the song he alludes to does ‘bear his name,’ yet it is only as the singer. It is rather unfortunate for Mr. Phillips’s veracity on this charge, that the very song to which he alludes is a piracy on the words of my brother’s! as the following quotation from the last verse of each will clearly prove.

One word with reference to Mr. Phillips’s name to songs. I believe that person does not allow songs to ‘bear his name,’ especially those not ‘entirely composed’ by himself, for nothing—which some of the poor composers and publishers know and feel to their cost; and I should presume that a feeling of this kind induces him to take so much interest (I had almost said principal too) in their publications.

If, Sir, Mr. Phillips is not now satisfied with this ‘exposÉ of such manoeuvres,’ I have a little more at his service, and that of the public, when occasion may require; but as I should presume that the pages of your valuable Journal may be filled with far more interesting matter to your musical readers, I conclude with an apology for being once more dragged into your columns,

And subscribe myself
Yours, very obediently,
ZENAS T. PURDAY.