ably painstaking and conscientious (Musical Herald, October 1900, p. 293). He was deeply studied in Handel's music, and edited his concertos and large selections of airs from the operas and oratorios. A Handel-Album, which extended to twenty volumes, was originally intended to consist of selections from the lesser-known instrumental works arranged for the organ; it was afterwards taken from more varied sources — the operas especially. He arranged for organ some hundreds of excerpts from other great masters' vocal and instrumental works. Another of Best's editions was 'Cecilia' (1883), a collection, in fifty-six parts, of original organ pieces by modern composers of various countries; it included his own sonata in D. minor, a 'Christmas Pastorale,' a set of twelve preludes on English psalm-tunes, a concert-fugue, a scherzo, and several other pieces of his own composition. 'The Art of Organ-Playing' (1869) is a very complete and thoroughly practical instruction book, ranging from the rudiments of execution to the highest proficiency. At the bicentenary of Bach's birth in 1885 Best began an edition of Bach's organ works, which he almost completed before he died.
Best was somewhat eccentric and in the main a recluse. He associated little with other musicians. He would not join the Royal College of Organists, and refused to play on any organ whose pedal-keyboard had been constructed on the plan recommended by that college. For many years he refused to let any other organist play on his own organ. He kept the tuner in attendance at his recitals in St. George's Hall, and would leave his seat in the middle of a performance to expostulate with him; on one occasion he informed the audience that the tuner received a princely salary and neglected his work. He would indulge his fancies to the full in brilliant extemporisations when a church organist, but his recitals in St. George's Hall were invariably restrained and classical.
[Musical Herald, January 1890 and June 1897; Monthly Musical Record, July 1871; Musical Times, June and July 1897; Brown and Stratton's British Musical Biography, p. 44. All these accounts differ in details.]
BEVERLEY, WILLIAM ROXBY (1814?–1889), scene painter, born at Richmond, Surrey, apparently in 1814, was youngest son of William Roxby (1765–1842), a well-known actor-manager, who, on taking to the boards, had added to his name the suffix of Beverley, from the old capital of the east riding of Yorkshire. The family consisted of four sons and a daughter, all of whom were identified with the stage—some under the name of Beverley and others under that of Roxby; of these Henry Roxby Beverley and Robert Roxby are noticed separately. Beverley at an early age developed a remarkable aptitude for drawing, and quickly turned his attention to scene painting. Under his father's management of the Theatre Royal, Manchester, in 1830, he painted a striking scene of the ‘Island of Mist’ for the dramatic romance of ‘The Frozen Hand.’ When in 1831 his father and his brothers Samuel and Robert Roxby [q. v.] took over the control of the Durham circuit, comprising Scarborough, Stockton, Durham, Sunderland, and North and South Shields, Beverley followed their fortunes, and for a few seasons played heavy comedy besides painting scenery. His work at Sunderland created a very favourable impression, although one of his predecessors there had been Clarkson Stanfield. In December 1838 he was specially engaged to paint the major portion of the scenery for the pantomime of ‘Number Nip’ at Edinburgh, his principal contribution being a moving diorama depicting scenes from Falconer's ‘Shipwreck.’ On 16 Sept. 1839 his brother, Harry Beverley, assumed the control of the Victoria Theatre in London for a short time, and there he painted for the first time in the metropolis, executing the scenery for the pantomime of ‘Baron Munchausen.’
In December 1842 Beverley was engaged as principal artist by Knowles of the Theatre Royal, Manchester. In 1845 he executed a beautiful act drop for the new Theatre Royal, Manchester, which remained in use for a quarter of a century. At the same house in June 1846 some magnificent scenery from his brush was seen in the opera of ‘Acis and Galatea.’ A little earlier in the year he had been engaged by Maddox as principal artist at the Princess's, London. In July the scenery for the revival of Planché's ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was from his brush, as were the vividly imaginative backgrounds in the Christmas pantomime of ‘The Enchanted Beauties of the Golden Castle.’ In Easter 1847 he provided a beautiful setting, with some ingenious transformations, for the revival of ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream.’ While still continuing his association with the Princess's, Beverley proceeded to the Lyceum under the Vestris-Mathews régime (1847–55), where his scenery illustrated the extravaganzas of Planché Combining, as Planché said, ‘the pictorial talent of Stanfield with the mechanical ingenuity of [William] Bradwell [the mechanist],’ Beverley
