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one for the late king of Portugal, and
the other for himself: this last he per-
mitted me to transcribe at Bologna, and
Signor Santarelli favoured me with an-
other copy from the archives of the Pope's
chapel: upon collating these two copies,
I find them to agree pretty exactly,
except in the first verse. I have seen
several spurious copies of this composition
in the possession of different persons, in
which the melody of the soprano, or up-
per part, was tolerably correct, but the
other parts differed very much; and this
inclined me to suppose the upper part to
have been written from memory, which,
being so often repeated to different words
in the performance, would not be difficult
to do, and the other parts to have been
made to it by some modern contrapuntist
afterwards.
Before I quit a subject so interesting to
the lovers of church music, I shall add
the following anecdote, with which I was
likewise furnished by Signor Santarelli.
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