the expedition, and the choice of the government was approved by the ‘united voice of the provinces.’ On 29 April 1745 the fleet of one hundred vessels—all, except the men-of-war, quite small—sailed into the harbour of Louisburg right under the guns of the fortress, effected a landing, and commenced a siege which illustrated the resource, pluck, and determination of the colonists. On 16 June the fortress capitulated, and the Maine militia marched into it. Their success created consternation and chagrin in France, and a great expedition was at once planned for the recovery of the place, which was, however, held till the termination of the war in 1748. Pepperell next projected the conquest of Canada; he was made a colonel of the king's army, and commissioned to raise a regular regiment, but was not called upon to carry out any important operation. On 15 Nov. 1746 he was for his great service created a baronet by the style of Pepperell of Massachusetts.
In 1747 he built in his yard one frigate and two other vessels for the British navy. In 1749, having retired from business, he resolved to visit England, and embarked for London, where he was cordially received by George II and presented by the city of London with a service of plate. On the renewal of war with France in 1755 he took the field with a regiment of a thousand men, but saw no active service. He was, however, in February 1759, promoted lieutenant-general in the British army. He died at Kittery on 16 July following.
Pepperell married, on 6 March 1723, Mary, daughter of Grove Hirst of Boston, who survived him thirty years, and by her had two children—a son, who died in his lifetime, in 1751, and a daughter Elizabeth, who married one Sparkway, and had a son, who took the name of Pepperell, and was created a baronet in 1764, in compliment to the grandfather, but died without male issue.
[Life of Sir W. Pepperell, bart., by Usher Parsons, Boston, 1855; Collections of Massachusetts Hist. Soc.; Withrow's History of Canada, p. 188; Bourinot's Cape Breton.]
PEPUSCH, JOHN CHRISTOPHER (1667–1752), professor of music and composer, the son of a German protestant clergyman, was born at Berlin in 1667, and studied the organ under Grosse, and musical theory under Klingenberg. At the age of fourteen he played at court, accompanying a singer, and was soon afterwards appointed the teacher of Prince Frederick William. That post he filled for six years, pursuing his own studies in the meanwhile. In 1687 Pepusch was in Holland, where his earlier works were published by Etienne Roger; but at the end of the following year he came to England, tempted probably by the success of Buononcini (Gerber), though a story is told of an act of kingly severity at Berlin, which Hawkins supposed to have been the cause of the musician's anxiety to quit the Prussian service.
In London Pepusch was at first employed as viola-player in the Drury Lane orchestra (Mendel); in 1700 he was given the conductor's place at the harpsichord, with the privilege of fitting operas for the stage, and adding his own music. He, for instance, introduced his song, ‘How blest is a soldier,’ into ‘Thomyris,’ 1707. But as early as 1696 one of his sonatas had been performed in Edinburgh (Husk), and in 1704 he wrote concerted music for some musicians brought over to England by his brother, Gottfried (Burney, and set to music some pièces d'occasion. His first independent publication consisted of cantatas composed in the Italian manner. Handel, however, was then forming English musical taste, and Pepusch's rather artificial and pedantic productions fell flat. Bowing to circumstances, he recognised somewhat grudgingly the superior genius of Handel, whom he described as ‘a good practical musician,’ and entered upon his true career as a teacher of the science of music.
Pepusch had thoroughly mastered past and generally obsolete learning on his subject, but he unfortunately had no true appreciation of musical development; for him the most perfect method lay in the ancient system of hexachords; the last word in practical music had been uttered by Corelli. Greater exaggerations followed as Pepusch advanced in years. He appeared through life to cling to a rule of his early years which he impressed upon Burney, ‘I was determined not to go to bed at night without knowing something that I did not know in the morning;’ and having conquered all existing worlds of musical knowledge, he sought in his last days for worlds supposed to be lost. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 13 June 1745, and read a paper at a meeting, which was afterwards published (Transactions, vol. xliv. pt. i. p. 266). He must, as Burney relates, have bewildered himself and some of his scholars with the ‘Greek genera, scales, diagrams, geometrical, arithmetical, and harmonical proportions; quantities, apotomes, lemmas, and everything concerning ancient harmonies that was dark, unintelligible, and foreign to common and useful practice. … Yet, though he fettered the genius of his scholars by anti-
