this time, and his remaining writings for the stage were produced as follows: ‘The Rencontre’ (Haymarket, 12 July 1828), ‘Yelva’ (Covent Garden, 5 Feb. 1829), ‘Home, sweet Home’ (Covent Garden, 19 March 1829), ‘The Night before the Wedding,’ a version of Boïeldieu's ‘Les Deux Nuits’ (Covent Garden, 17 Nov. 1829), ‘Ninetta’ (Covent Garden, 4 Feb. 1830), ‘Hofer’ (Drury Lane, 1 May 1830), ‘Under the Oak’ (Vauxhall, 25 June 1830), ‘Adelaide, or the Royal William’ (Vauxhall, 23 July 1830), ‘The Romance of a Day’ (1831), ‘The Tyrolese Peasant’ (Drury Lane, May 1832), ‘The Election’ (Drury Lane, 1832), which was composed by Carter, but scored by Bishop, ‘The Magic Fan’ (Vauxhall, 18 June 1832), ‘The Sedan Chair’ (Vauxhall, 1832), ‘The Sedan Chair’ (Vauxhall, 1832), ‘The Bottle of Champagne’ (Vauxhall, 1832), and ‘The Demon,’ a version of Meyerbeer's ‘Robert le Diable,’ in which he collaborated with T. Cooke and R. Hughes (Drury Lane, 1832). He also wrote music for ‘Hamlet’ at Drury Lane (1830), for Stanfield's diorama at the same theatre (1830), and for ‘Kenilworth’ (1832), ‘Waverley’ (1832), ‘Manfred’ (1834), ‘The Captain and the Colonel’ (1835), and ‘The Doom Kiss’ (1836). The long list of Bishop's writings for the stage is closed by ‘Rural Felicity’ (Haymarket, 9 June 1839), additions to ‘The Beggars' Opera’ (Covent Garden, 1839), music to ‘Love's Labour's Lost’ (1839), and the masque of ‘The Fortunate Isles,’ written to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria, and produced at Covent Garden under Madame Vestris's management on 12 Feb. 1840.
In 1830 Bishop left Drury Lane and was appointed musical director of Vauxhall Gardens, which post he occupied for three years. In 1832 he was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society to write a work for their concerts, in fulfilment of which he composed a sacred cantata, ‘The Seventh Day,’ which was performed in the following year, without, however, achieving any great success. Two years later (1836) another cantata of Bishop's, ‘The Departure from Paradise,’ was sung at the same concerts by Malibran. Other cantatas composed by him are ‘Waterloo’ (performed at Vauxhall in 1826), and a setting of Burns's ‘Jolly Beggars.’ In 1838, according to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1838, i. 539), he was appointed composer to her majesty; but this statement is proved to be inaccurate by the absence of any record of his appointment in the official documents of the lord steward's and lord chamberlain's offices, as well as by the fact that in 1847 he was desirous of obtaining the post on its becoming vacant. In the following year he received the degree of Mus. Bac. at Oxford. He was for some time professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and in November 1841 was elected to the Reid professorship at Edinburgh, which appointment he continued to hold until December 1843, when he was succeeded by Henry Hugo Pierson. From 1840 to 1848 he conducted the Antient Concerts, and in 1842 he was knighted by the queen, this being the first occasion on which a musician had been so honoured. In 1848 he succeeded Dr. Crotch as professor of music at Oxford, where in 1853 he received the degree of Mus. Doc., his exercise being an ode performed on the installation of the Earl of Derby as chancellor of the university.
Between 1819 and 1826 Bishop had been occupied at various times with arranging different ‘Melodies of Various Nations’ and ‘National Melodies’ to English words, and in 1851 he began a similar undertaking, his collaborator in this case being Dr. Charles Mackay. Of these arrangements, which are extremely free and much altered from the originals, Bishop wrote that he was more proud than of any musical composition that he had ever produced. He also edited Handel's ‘Messiah’ and many other works. Though at one time Bishop must have been in receipt of a considerable income, he was extravagant in his habits and made no provision for his old age, in which he was harassed by pecuniary difficulties. In a letter (Egerton, 2159) written in 1840 he says: ‘I have worked hard, and during many a long year, for fame! and have had many difficulties to encounter in obtaining that portion of it which I am proud to know I possess. I have been a slavish servant to the public; and too often, when I have turned each way their weathercock taste pointed, they have turned round on me and upbraided me for not remaining where I was! … Had the public remained truly and loyally English, I would have remained so too! But I had my bread to get, and was obliged to watch their caprices, and give them an exotic fragrance if I could not give them the plant, when I found they were tired of, and neglecting the native production.’ In writing these words Bishop doubtless had in mind the failure of his ‘Aladdin,’ but the reason why in his later years he suffered from neglect was perhaps not so much the fault of the public as he thought. Possessed of a wonderful wealth of melody and great facility in composition, during the best years of his life he frittered away his talents on compositions which were not strong enough to survive beyond the season which saw their production; and worse than this, he not only wrote down
