Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/172

H August 1848 he first visited America, remaining there until the spring of 1850, when he returned in order to accompany Sims Reeves on a tour; he went again to America in the following September. His playing and singing were alike admired, and he introduced some of Mendelssohn's music to the Boston public. At no time was he troubled by artistic scruples, and it was often uncertain whether the place allotted to him in the programme would be occupied by one of Bach's fugues or by a comic song of his own composition. It is said that his hearers were delighted with a song called ‘The Sleigh Ride,’ in the course of which he produced ‘realistic’ effects by means of bells tied to his leg. Soon after his return to England at the end of 1850 he became conductor of the Glee and Madrigal Union, a post which he retained for some years. He was for five years (probably 1853–9) conductor and arranger of the music under Charles Kean's management at the Princess's Theatre, but it is difficult to disentangle his own compositions from the works of other composers arranged by him during this period for theatrical purposes. The music to ‘Henry VIII,’ ‘Richard II,’ ‘Sardanapalus,’ and ‘The Winter's Tale’ is undoubtedly by him; the first and third sets of compositions were published, and contain some vigorous and effective numbers. It is probable that few of the plays produced by Kean were altogether without original work by Hatton. In many of the Shakespearean performances he skilfully adapted old English airs.

Meanwhile the concert tours continued. In the course of one of these journeys Hatton's popular song, ‘Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye,’ was composed for Mario. On 26 Aug. 1856 his cantata, ‘Robin Hood,’ to words by G. Linley, was given at the Bradford musical festival, with more success than attended most of his longer works. The last of his operas, ‘Rose, or Love's Ransom,’ set to words by H. Sutherland Edwards, was produced at Covent Garden by the English Opera Association 26 Nov. 1864; the libretto was founded upon Halévy's ‘Val d'Andorre;’ the music is not in Hatton's best vein. In 1866 he contributed several songs to Watts Phillips's play, ‘The Huguenot Soldier,’ and in the same year went again to America. The ‘Ballad Concerts’ at St. James's Hall, London, were begun in this year, and for the first nine seasons Hatton held the post of accompanist and conductor. In October 1875 he paid a first visit to Stuttgart, which he frequently revisited afterwards. There he wrote an oratorio entitled ‘Hezekiah,’ which, when given at the Crystal Palace on 15 Dec. 1877, failed to please critical musicians. Though much of the choral writing was justly censured on account of its imitations of Handel and Mendelssohn, yet traces could still be seen of his old taste for counterpoint and the severer forms of music. Among his later compositions were a cantata to words by Milton (manuscript), a trio for piano and strings, published in Germany, and a chorus, ‘The Earth is fair.’ His ‘Aldeburgh Te Deum’ (published) commemorates his fondness for the Suffolk village in which some part of his later years was spent. He edited for Messrs. Boosey & Co. many ‘song albums,’ collections of old English songs, ballad operas, and so forth; their accompaniments are simpler than those in vogue in the present time, but set the melodies in the most favourable light. He was a Freemason and a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, and belonged also to the Royal Yacht Club. Hatton died at Margate, where he had chiefly lived since 1877, on 20 Sept. 1886. He was buried at Kensal Green on the 25th.

That Hatton's enduring fame as an English musician is based on so slight a foundation is not due to any shortcomings in natural gifts, but to the irresistible influence of his animal spirits and his lack of artistic earnestness. His part-songs, like ‘When evening's twilight,’ remain among the most popular works of this kind; genuine humour is displayed in such songs as ‘Simon the Cellarer;’ and one at least, ‘To Anthea,’ has become a classic. Hatton was popular wherever he went; he was a bon vivant, though no rumour of intemperance was ever heard against him. He married Emma, second daughter of William Freelove March, esq., of Southampton, and widow of R. F. Poussett, consul at Buenos Ayres, by whom he had two daughters. A lithographed portrait by Kniehuber of Vienna represents him at the time of the production of ‘Pascal Bruno,’ and another, from a photograph, is in the ‘Tonic Sol-Fa Reporter’ (December 1886). 

HAUGHTON, GRAVES CHAMPNEY (1788–1849), orientalist, born in 1788, was the second son of John Haughton, a Dublin physician, by the daughter of Edward