several odes and many songs; and, much later, Thomas Attwood (d. 1838), the eminent organist at St. Paul's, with over 20 operettas (1792-1807) and many fine glees and songs.
Charles Dibdin (d. 1814), a Winchester choirboy, at 15 (1760) went to London and sought dramatic employment. The Shepherd's Artifice (1762), in which he figured as author, composer and actor-singer, was so successful that he followed it up with about 70 others (till 1798), besides 30 musical monologues—the latter containing most of his famous sea-songs. He engaged in several speculations, wrote at length on his experiences and on the stage (1788-1803), edited a periodical and published novels.
Michael Arne (d. 1786), the son of T. A. Arne, early showed talent for stage-writing, beginning with The Fairy Tale (1763) and Almena (1764), the latter jointly with Battishill. The best of his 9 plays was Garrick's Cymon (1767).
Thomas Linley, Sr. (d. 1795), at first a singing-teacher at Bath and from 1774 concert-conductor at London, produced over 10 song-plays (1768-88), two of which were adapted from Grétry. He was an accomplished writer of songs and madrigals. His gifted son, Thomas Linley, Jr. (d. 1778 at 22), was Mozart's boyhood friend.
James Hook (d. 1827) showed enormous fertility in some 2000 songs, cantatas, catches and the like, including about 25 plays (1771-1809), many odes, an oratorio (1776), etc.; Thomas Carter (d. 1804), after becoming noted for his songs at Dublin, produced a number of song-plays at London (1775-92); Michael Kelly (d. 1826), first famous as a singer in Italy and at Vienna, produced over 60 song-plays (from 1789); and William Reeve (d. 1815), an actor and singer, followed with about 40 (1791-1811), partly in conjunction with Joseph Mazzinghi (d. 1844).
William Shield (d. 1829), a viola-player, came to London in 1772, was long connected with prominent theatres, and produced nearly 40 plays of various degree (1778-1807), many songs, some beautiful in simplicity, some full of technical difficulty, and part-songs. From 1817 he had a court position, and at his death was buried at Westminster. His originality as a song-writer is specially noted.
Stephen Storace (d. 1796 at 32) was a precocious violinist and was sent as a boy to Naples for study. At 22-3 (1785-6) he brought out two operas at Vienna, and knew Mozart well. Returning to England, he quickly produced almost 15 stage-works (1788-96), several of them adapted from European singspiele, but including his own The Haunted Tower (1789), The Pirates (1792) and others. His sister, Ann Storace (d. 1817), his companion in study and travel, was a famous soprano, who, after success in Italy and at Vienna, sang in opera in England for many years.
The artistic cultivation of part-songs was much stimulated by the founding in 1761 of the Catch Club, still a flourishing institution. Most of the famous glee-writers were enrolled in this, and all at some time won prizes in its annual competitions. A somewhat similar organization was the Glee Club, founded in 1787 and disbanded in 1857. In this many members of the Catch Club were also enrolled. [The term 'catch' originally
