SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH in 1958 Vaughan Williams told Michael Kennedy, who was already committed to writing the composer's ‘musical biography’, that the coda or Epilogue to the final movement of hisA London Symphony had a link with the end of H.G. Wells's novelTono-Bungay, in which London is evoked as the book's narrator and central character passes down the Thames through the city to the open sea. ‘For actual coda see end of Wells'sTono Bungay’ was the composer's laconic advice. Kennedy then quotes two short passages from the final chapter ofTono-Bungay, and these have since become a standard point of reference for other writers on the symphony. They have appeared in record sleeve and programme notes, and in other places, such as Hugh Ottaway's BBC Music Guide to the Vaughan Williams Symphonies. The most frequently quoted passage is the following:

Light after light goes down. England and the Kingdom, Britain and the Empire, the old prides and the old devotions, glide abeam, astern, sink down upon the horizon, pass—pass. The river passes—London passes, England passes…

¹ Quoted inKennedy,Michael:The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (London,1964)Google Scholar. Kennedy's discussion of the Epilogue and his citation ofTono-Bungay appear on pp. 139–140.

²Wells,H.G.:Experiment in Autobiography (London,1966) pp.503 and 639Google Scholar. All quotations fromTono-Bungay are taken from the final chapter.

³ SeeWilliams,Ursula Vaughan:RVW.A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (London,1964), p.95Google Scholar.

⁴ These are quoted byKennedy,,op.cit, pp.467–8Google Scholar.

⁵ SeeOttaway,Hugh:Vaughan Williams Symphonies (London,1972) pp.20–21Google Scholar.

⁶Kennedy,,op.cit, p.468Google Scholar.