, Mus. D. was brought up in the king’s chapel, and took his degree
, Mus. D. was brought up in the
king’s chapel, and took his degree of doctor of music at
Cambridge at the time of the Installation of theduke of Grafton as chancellor of that university. Dr. Howard had studied
much under Dr. Pepusch at the Charter-house, and was
well acquainted with the mechanical rules of counterpoint.
His overture in the “Amorous Goddess,
” a happy imitation of Handel’s overture in “Alcina,
” particularly the
musette and minuet, was very popular in the theatres and
public gardens. But his ballads, which were long the delight of natural and inexperienced lovers of music, had
the merit of facility; for this honest Englishman preferred
the style of his own country to that of any other so mnch,
that he never staggered in his belief of its being the best
in the world, by listening to foreign artists or their productions, for whom and for which he had an invincible
aversion.