WILLIAM, Doctor of Music, was born at Norwich, on 5th July 1775, and died suddenly at Taunton on 29th December 1847, in the house of his son, the Rev. W. R. Crotch. When only three years and a half old, he was able to play tunes with their basses on the organ with great correctness. Dr Charles Burney, the English historian of music, gave an interesting account of the infant Crotch in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. IX., part i., for 1779. Crotch also exhib- Crochet bit in his infancy a talent for drawing, which he afterwards cultivated so far as to become a very respectable amateur painter of landscapes. At the early age of twenty-two he was appointed professor of music in the university of Oxford, and there in 1799 took his degree of doctor in that art. In 1800, and the four following years, he read lectures on music at Oxford. Next he was appointed lecturer on music to the Royal Institution; and, subsequently, in 1823, principal of the London Royal Academy of Music. He published a number of vocal and instrumental compositions, of which the best is his Oratorio of "Palestine." In 1831 appeared an 8vo volume containing the substance of his lectures on music, delivered at Oxford and in London. Previously, he had published three volumes of "Specimens of various styles of Music," referred to in his lectures. Among his didactic works is "Elements of musical composition and thorough-bass," London, 1812. He arranged for the pianoforte a number of Handel's Oratorios and Operas, besides symphonies and quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The great expectations excited by his infant precocity were not fulfilled; for he manifested no extraordinary genius for musical composition. But he was a hard student and a sound musician, and justly holds a high place among English cultivators of his art. He performed all his public duties laboriously, zealously, and honourably; and in private life was much beloved and respected.