with Georg Handel's Messiah. Busby then set to work on settings of Thomas Gray's Progress of Poesy, Pope's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day", and a cantata from Ossian, Comala; however, it is not clear whether any of these were performed. A secular "oratorio", Britannia (words by John Gretton), was sung at Covent Garden in 1801 with Gertrud Elisabeth Mara as the principal soprano. Busby also wrote music for Richard Cumberland's version of Kotzebue's Joanna, which was produced at Covent Garden on 16 January 1800, without much success. In June 1801, Busby obtained the degree of Mus. Doc. at Cambridge, for which purpose he entered at Magdalene College. His exercise on this occasion was "A Thanksgiving Ode on the Naval Victories", the words of which were written by Mrs Crespigny. In 1802 he wrote music to Thomas Holcroft's melodrama A Tale of Mystery, the first play of this type that appeared on the English stage. It was produced at Covent Garden on 13 November 1802, and was very successful. In the following year Busby wrote music for Anna Maria Porter's musical entertainment The Fair Fugitives (Covent Garden, 16 May 1803); but this was a failure. His connection with the stage ceased with Matthew Lewis's Rugantino (Covent Garden, 18 October 1805). The music to all these plays was published. Final years In his latter years Busby lived with a married daughter at Queen's Row, Pentonville, where he died, aged 84, on Monday, 28 May 1838. According to an obituary notice of him. he was eccentric and held "loose notions on religious subjects". George Borrow is said to have portrayed Busby as the editor of the "Universal Review" in his novel Lavengro (1851). Publications In 1786 Busby and Samuel Arnold brought out a Musical Dictionary. Busby went on to issue a serial entitled The Divine Harmonist, consisting of 12 folio numbers of music, partly selected and partly original. In this work are included some fragments of his oratorio The Creation. The Divine Harmonist was followed by Melodia Britannica, which was to be a collection of English music, but the work was unsuccessful, and was never completed. About the same time Busby completed a translation of Lucretius into rhymed verse. Around 1800 he brought out A New and Complete Musical Dictionary, and started the first musical periodical in England, The Monthly Musical Journal, of which four numbers were produced. His translation of Lucretius was