Methought the King of Terrors came my way:Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,I stood—and dared to look him in the face.“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:For I had shaped the deeds of many years—Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!’Twere very sweet already to have wonMy crown, and pass to see as I am seen,And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:Yet would I stay—and for myself, I own:—To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”
Methought the King of Terrors came my way:Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,I stood—and dared to look him in the face.“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:For I had shaped the deeds of many years—Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!’Twere very sweet already to have wonMy crown, and pass to see as I am seen,And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:Yet would I stay—and for myself, I own:—To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”
Methought the King of Terrors came my way:Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,I stood—and dared to look him in the face.“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:For I had shaped the deeds of many years—Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!’Twere very sweet already to have wonMy crown, and pass to see as I am seen,And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:Yet would I stay—and for myself, I own:—To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”
Methought the King of Terrors came my way:
Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.
But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,
I stood—and dared to look him in the face.
“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:
For I had shaped the deeds of many years—
Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,
To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.
Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!
’Twere very sweet already to have won
My crown, and pass to see as I am seen,
And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:
Yet would I stay—and for myself, I own:—
To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”
Without going back to abstruse speculations on the origin of music in England (there is a mania in our century for discovering the “origin” of everything, and theorizing on it, long before a sufficient number of facts has been collected even to make a pedestal for the most modest and limited theory), we gather from the mention of it in old English poems, and books on ballads and songs, glees and catches, that it existed in a very creditable form at least eight hundred years ago. Indeed, there was national and popular music before this, and the Welsh songs, the oldest of all, point far back to a legendary past as the source of their being. The first foreign song that mingled with the rude music of the early Britons was doubtless that of the Christian missionaries in the first century of our era, and after that there can have been little music among the converted Britons but what was more or less tinged with a foreign and Christian element. We know, too, that at various times foreign monks either came or were invited to the different kingdoms in England to teach the natives the ecclesiastical chant. Gardiner, in hisMusic of Nature, says that “as the invaders came from all parts of the Continent, our language and music became a motley collection of sounds and words unlike that of any other people; and though we have gained a language of great force and extent, yet we have lost our primitive music, as not a single song remains that has the character of being national.” He also says that before music was cultivated as an art, England, in common with other countries, had its national songs, but that these, with the people who sang them, were driven by the conquerors into Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This assertion is rather a sweeping one, and the recognized formula about the ancient inhabitants of Britain beingallcrowded into certain particular districts is one that will bear modifying and correcting. The British Anthropological Society has, during the last ten years, made interesting researches in the field of race-characteristics in different parts of England, and an accumulation of facts has gone far to prove the permanence of some Gaelic, Cymric, and Celtic types in other parts, exclusive of Wales and Cornwall. Dr. Beddoe and Mr. Mackintosh have published the result of their observations, and the latter concludes that “a considerable portion of the west Midland and southwestern counties are scarcely distinguishable from three of the types found in Wales—namely, the British, Gaelic, and Cymrian. In Shropshire, and ramifying to the east and southeast, the Cymrian type may be found in great numbers, though not predominating.… In many parts of the southwest the prevailing type among the working classes is decidedly Gaelic.… North Devon and Dorset may be regarded as its headquartersin South Britain.” Then, again, the district along the borders of Wales, especially between Taunton and Oswestry, and as far east as Bath, shows a population more naturally intellectual than that of any other part of England, and that without any superiority of primary education to account for it. The people are what might be called Anglicized Welsh, and there is among them a greater taste for solid knowledge than in the heart of England. Lancashire is to a great extent Scandinavian, and also somewhat Cymrian, as we have seen, and there the people are known as a shrewd, hardy race, thoughtful and fond of study, and great adepts in music.
At a large school in Tiverton, Devonshire, nine-tenths of the boys presented the most exaggerated Gaelic physiognomy; while at another, near Chichester, the girls were all of the most unmistakable Saxon type. We need not go further in this classification, and only introduced it to show that massing together all British types in Wales and Cornwall is a fallacy, such as all hasty generalizations are. It is not so certain, therefore, that there exists no indigenous element in the old songs that have survived, though in many an altered form, in some of the rural districts of England. Then, again, how is the word “national” used—in the sense of indigenous, or of popular, or of exclusively belonging to one given country? English music was, before the Commonwealth, at least as indigenous as the English language, as that gradually grew up and welded itself together. As to popularity, there was a style of song—some specimens of which we shall give—which was known and used by the poorest and humblest, and a style, too, far removed from the plebeian, though it may have been rather sentimental. Then glees and catches are, though of no very great antiquity, essentially English, and are scarcely known in any other country. If “national” stands for “political,” as many people at this day seem to take for granted, then, indeed, England has not much to boast of. That music is born rather of oppression and defeat, and loves to commemorate a people’s undying devotion to their own race, laws, customs, and rulers. Irish and Welsh and Jacobite songs exhibit that style best, though only the first of the three have any present significance, the two other kinds having long ago become more valuable for their intrinsic or historical merit than for their political meaning. Certain modern English songs, such as “Ye Mariners of England,” “Rule Britannia,” “The Death of Nelson,” might be called national songs in the political sense; but “God Save the King,” though patriotic and loyal, is thoroughly German in style and composition, and therefore hardly deserves the title national.
The Welsh have kept their musical taste pure. Mr. Mackintosh, in his paper on theComparative Anthropology of England and Wales, says of the quiet and thoughtful villagers of Glan Ogwen, near the great Penrhyn slate quarries, that “their appreciation of the compositions of Handel and other great musicians is remarkable; and they perform the most difficult oratorios with a precision of time and intonation unknown in any part of England, except the West Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Worcester,Gloucester, and Hereford.” The three latter are towns where the musical festivals are so frequent that the taste of the people cannot help being educated up to a good standard. Hereford, too, is very near the Welsh border. “The musical ear of the Welsh is extremely accurate. I was once present in a village church belonging to the late Dean of Bangor, when the choir sang an anthem composed by their leader, and repeated an unaccompanied hymn-tune five or six times without the slightest lowering of pitch. The works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart are republished with Welsh words at Ruthin and several other towns, and their circulation is almost incredible. At book and music shops of a rank where in England negro melodies would form the staple compositions, Handel is the great favorite; and such tunes as ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ would not be tolerated. The native airs are in general very elegant and melodious. Some of them, composed long before Handel, are in the Handelian style; others are remarkably similar to some of Corelli’s compositions. The less classical Welsh airs, in 3-8 time, such as ‘Jenny Jones’ are well known. Those in 2-4 time are often characterized by a sudden stop in the middle or at the close of a measure, and a repetition of pathetic slides or slurs.”
Much of this eulogium might be equally applied to the people of Lancashire, especially the men, who know the great oratorios by heart, and sing the choruses faultlessly among themselves, not only at large gatherings, but in casual reunions, whenever three or four happen to meet. Their part-singing, too, in glees, both ancient and modern, is admirable, and they have scarcely any taste for the low songs which are only too popular in many parts of England.
The songs of chivalry were another graft on the stock of English music, and the honor paid to the bards and minstrels was a mingling of the love of a national institution at least as old as the Druids—some say much older—and of the enthusiasm produced by the metrical relation of heroic feats of arms. The Crusades gave a great impulse to the troubadours’ songs, while the ancient British custom of commemorating the national history by the oral tradition and the music of the harpers, seemed to merge into and strengthen the new order of minstrels. Long before the bagpipe became the peculiar—almost national—instrument of Scotland, the harp held that position, as it has not yet ceased to do, in Ireland and Wales. The oldest harp now in Great Britain is an Irish one, which was already old in 1064. It is now in the museum of Trinity College, Dublin. These ancient instruments were very different from the modern ones on which our grandmothers used to display their skill before the pianoforte became, to its detriment, the fashionable instrument for young ladies; and even now the Irish and Welsh harps are made exactly on the old models, and have no pedals. But the use of the harp was not confined to the Welsh, and in the reign of King John, in the XIIth century, on the occasion of an attack made on the old town of Chester by the Welsh during the great yearly fair, it is recorded in the town annals that the commandant assembled all the minstrels who had come to the place upon that occasion, andmarched them in the night, with their instruments playing, against the enemy, who, upon hearing so vast a sound, were filled with such terror and surprise that they instantly fled. In memory of this famous exploit, no doubt suggested by the Biblical narrative of Gideon’s successful stratagem, a meeting of minstrels is annually kept up to this day, with one of the Dutton family at their head, to whom certain privileges are granted. In the reign of Henry I. the minstrels were formed into corporate bodies, and enjoyed certain immunities in various parts of the kingdom. Gardiner[162]says that “the most accomplished became the companions and favorites of kings, and attended the court in all its expeditions.” Perhaps we may refer the still extant office of poet-laureate to this custom of retaining a court minstrel near the person of the sovereign. In the time of Elizabeth the profession of a harper had become a degraded one, only embraced by idle, low, and dissolute characters; and so it has remained ever since, through the various stages of ballad-monger, street-singer and fiddler, in which the memory of the once noble office has been merged or lost. In Scotland the piper, a personage of importance, has taken the place of the harper since the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, who introduced the pipes from France; but in Wales the minstrel, with his harp, upheld his respectability much longer, and even now most of the old families, jealous and proud of their national customs, retain their bard as an officer of the household. The writer has seen and heard one of these ancient minstrels, in the service of a family living near Llanarth, the mistress (a widow) making it her special business to promote the keeping up of all old national customs. She was an excellent farmer, too, and had a pet breed of small black Welsh sheep, whose wool she prepared for the loom herself, and with which she clothed her family and household. In the neighboring town she had got up an annual competition of harpers and choirs for the performance of Welsh music exclusively. The concert was always the occasion of a regular country festivity, ending with a ball, and medals and other prizes were given by her own hand to the best instrumental and vocal artists.
In Percy’sReliquesa description is given of the dress and appearance of a mediæval bard, as personated at a pageant given at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Elizabeth. The glory of the brotherhood was already so much a thing of the past that it was thought worth while to introduce this figure into a mock procession. This very circumstance is enough to mark the decline of the art in those days, but already a new sort of popular song had sprung up to replace the romances of chivalry. “A person,” says Percy, “very meet for the purpose, … his cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsure-wise, fair-kembed [combed], that with a sponge daintily dipt in a little capon’s grease was finely smoothed, to make it shine like a mallard’s wing. His beard smugly shaven; and yet his shirt, after the new trink, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked and glittering like a pair of new shoes; marshalled in good order with a setting stick and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer.[163]A long gown ofKendal-green gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with a white clasp and a keeper close up to the chin, but easily, for heat, to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle; from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging at two sides. Out of his bosom was drawn forth a lappet of his napkin [handkerchief] edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true-love, a heart, andDfor Damain; for he was but a bachelor yet. His gown had long sleeves down to mid-leg, lined with white cotton. His doublet-sleeves of black worsted; upon them a pair of poynets [wristlets, frompoignet] of tawny chamlet, laced along the wrist with blue threaden points; a wealt towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather stocks, a pair of pumps [shoes] on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns; not new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing-horn. About his neck a red riband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependent before him. His wrest [tuning-key] tyed to a green lace, and hanging by. Under the gorget of his gown, a fair chain of silver as a squire minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men’s houses. From his chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and color, resplendent upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington.” The peculiarities marking his shoes no doubt referred to the long pedestrian tours of the early minstrels.
Chaucer, in the XIVth century, makes frequent mention of music, both vocal and instrumental. Of his twenty-nine Canterbury Pilgrims, six could either play or sing, and two, the Squire and the Mendicant Friar, could do both. Of the Prioress he quaintly says:
“Ful wel she sangé the service devine,Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”
“Ful wel she sangé the service devine,Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”
“Ful wel she sangé the service devine,Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”
“Ful wel she sangé the service devine,
Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”
Dr. Burney thinks that part-singing was already known and practised in Chaucer’s time, and draws this inference from the notice the poet takes in his “Dream” of the singing of birds:
“… for some of them songe loweSome high, and all of one accorde”;
“… for some of them songe loweSome high, and all of one accorde”;
“… for some of them songe loweSome high, and all of one accorde”;
“… for some of them songe lowe
Some high, and all of one accorde”;
and it is certain that this kind of music was a great favorite with the English people at a very early period, and was indebted to them for many improvements. The same writer says that the English, in their secular music and in part-singing, rather preceded than followed the European nations, and that, though he could find no music in parts, except church music, in foreign countries before the middle of the XVIth century, yet in England he found Masses in four, five, and six parts, as well as secular songs in the vulgar tongue in two or three parts, in the XVth and early part of the XVIth centuries. Ritson, it is true, in hisAncient Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution, disputes this, but Hawkins is of the same opinion as Burney. Mr. Stafford Smith, at the end of the last century, made a collection of old English songs written in score for three or four voices; but though the oldest music to such songs is scarcely intelligible, the number collected proves how popular that sort of music was in early times. (Perhaps the illegibility of the music is due to the old notation, in use beforethe perfected stave of four lines became general—the pneumatic notation, supposed by Coussemaker, Schubiger, Ambros, and other writers on music to have been developed out of the system of accents of speech represented by signs, such as are still used in French.)
Landini, an Italian writer of the XVth century, in hisCommentary on Dante, speaks of “many most excellent musicians” as coming from England to Italy to hear and study under Antoniodegli organi(a name denoting his profession); while another writer, the choir-master of the royal chapel of Ferdinand, King of Naples, mentions the excellence of the English vocal music in parts, and even (incorrectly) calls John of Dunstable (a musician of the middle of the XVth century) the “inventor of counterpoint.”
One of the oldest compositions of this kind is a manuscript score in the British Museum, a canon in unison for four voices, with the addition of two more voices for thepes, as it is called, which is a kind of ground, and is the basis of the harmony. The words, partially modernized, are as follows (they are much older than the music, which is only four hundred years old):
“Summer is a-coming in,Loud sing cuckoo;Groweth seedAnd bloweth mead,And springeth the weed new.Ewe bleateth after lamb;Loweth after calf, cow;Bullock sterteth [leaps],Buckè verteth [frequents green places],Merry sing cuckoo;Nor cease thou ever now.”
“Summer is a-coming in,Loud sing cuckoo;Groweth seedAnd bloweth mead,And springeth the weed new.Ewe bleateth after lamb;Loweth after calf, cow;Bullock sterteth [leaps],Buckè verteth [frequents green places],Merry sing cuckoo;Nor cease thou ever now.”
“Summer is a-coming in,Loud sing cuckoo;Groweth seedAnd bloweth mead,And springeth the weed new.Ewe bleateth after lamb;Loweth after calf, cow;Bullock sterteth [leaps],Buckè verteth [frequents green places],Merry sing cuckoo;Nor cease thou ever now.”
“Summer is a-coming in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
Groweth seed
And bloweth mead,
And springeth the weed new.
Ewe bleateth after lamb;
Loweth after calf, cow;
Bullock sterteth [leaps],
Buckè verteth [frequents green places],
Merry sing cuckoo;
Nor cease thou ever now.”
Dr. Burney says of this song that the modulation is monotonous, but that the chief merit lies in “the airy, pastoral correspondence of the melody with the words”—a merit which many modern compositions of the “popular” type are very far from possessing. Under the Tudors music made rapid strides. Dr. Robert Fairfax was well known as a composer in those days, and a collection of old English songs with their music (often in parts), made by him, has been preserved to this day. Besides himself, such writers as Cornyshe, Syr Thomas Phelyppes, Davy, Brown, Banister, Tudor, Turges, Sheryngham, and William of Newark are represented. Of these, Cornyshe was the best, and Purcell, two hundred years later, imitated much of his rondeau style, most of these composers being entirely secular. Henry VIII. himself wrote music for two Masses, and had them sung in his chapel; and to be able to take a part in madrigals, and sing at sight in any piece of concerted music, was reckoned a part of a gentleman’s education in those days. The invention of printing gave a great impulse to song-writing and composing, though for some time after the words were printed the music was probably still copied by hand over the words; for the printing of notes was of course a further and subsequent development of the new art. A musician and poet of the name of Gray became a favorite of Henry VIII. and of the Protector Somerset “for making certain merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was ‘The hunt is up—the hunt is up.’”[164]
“A popular species of harmony,” says Ritson, “arose in this reign; it was called ‘King Henry’s Mirth,’ or ‘Freemen’s Songs,’ that monarch being a great admirer of vocal music. ‘Freemen’s Songs’ is a corruption of ‘Three-men’s Songs,’ from their being generally for threevoices.” Very few songs were written for one voice.
Ballads were very popular, and formed one of the great attractions at fairs. An old pamphlet, published in the reign of Elizabeth, mentions with astonishment that “Out-roaring Dick and Wat Winbars” got twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair, in Essex. It does seem a good deal, considering that the sum was equal to five pounds of the present money, which again is equivalent to about thirty dollars currency. These wandering singers, the lowly successors of the proud minstrels, were in their way quite as successful; but, what is more wonderful, their songs were for the most part neither coarse nor vulgar. Good poets wrote for music in those days;now, as a general rule, it is only rhymers who avowedly write that their words may be set to music. As quack-doctors, fortune-tellers, pedlers, etc., mounted benches and barrel-heads to harangue the people, and thus gained the now ill-sounding name of mountebanks, so too did these singers call over their songs and sing those chosen by their audience; and they are frequently called by the writers of those timescantabanchi, an Italian compound ofcantare(to sing) andbanchi(benches). Among the headings given of these popular songs are the following: “The Three Ravens: a dirge”; “By a bank as I lay”; “So woe is me, begone”; “Three merry men we be”; “But now he is dead and gone”; “Now, Robin, lend me thy Bow”; “Bonny Lass upon a green”; “He is dead and gone, Lady,” etc. There is a quaint grace and sadness about the titles which speaks well for the manners of those who listened and applauded. Popular taste has certainly degenerated in many parts of England; for such titlesnowwould only provoke a sneer among an average London or Midland county audience of the lower classes. Gardiner says: “The most ancient of our English songs are of a grave cast, and commonly written in the key of G minor.”
Among the composers of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. was Birde, who wrote a still popular canon on the Latin words “Non nobis, Domine,” and set to music the celebrated song ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer, a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, “My Mind to me a Kingdom is.”
Birde’s scholar, Morley, produced a great number of canzonets, or short songs for three or more voices; and Ford, who was an original genius, published some pieces for four voices, with an accompaniment for lutes and viols, besides other pieces, especially catches of an humorous character. George Kirbye was another canzonet composer, and Thomas Weelkes has been immortalized by the good-fortune which threw him in Shakspere’s way, so that the latter often wrote words for his music. Yet doubtless the fame of the one, as that of the other, was chiefly posthumous; and poet and musician, on a par in those days, may have starved in company, unknowing that a MS. of theirs would fetch its weight in gold a hundred years after they were in their graves.
“The musical reputation of England,” says a writer in an old review of 1834, “must mainly rest on the songs in parts of the period between 1560 and 1625.” And Gardiner says: “If we can set up any claim to originality, it is in our glees and anthems.” The gleemen, who were at first a classof the minstrels, are supposed to have been the first who performed vocal music in parts, according to set rules and by notes, though the custom must have existed long before it was thus technically sanctioned. The earliest pieces of the kindupon recordare by the madrigal writers, and were, perhaps, founded upon the taste of the Italian school; but there soon grew up a distinction sufficient to mark English glee-music as a separate species of the art. It is said that glee-singing did not become generally popular till about the year 1770, when glees formed a prominent part of the private concerts of the nobility; but their being adopted into fashionable circles only at that date is scarcely a proof of their late origin. The canzonets for three or four voices must have been closely allied to glees, and a family likeness existed between these and the madrigals for four or five voices, the ballets, or fa-las, for five, and the songs for six and seven parts, which are so prodigally mentioned in a list of works by Morley within the short space of only four years—1593 to 1597. The number of these songs proves their wonderful popularity, and we incline to think, with the writer we have quoted, that the English, in the catches and glees, the works of the composers of the days of Elizabeth and James I., and those of Purcell, Tallis, Croft, Bull, Blow, Boyce, etc., at a later period, possess a music essentially national and original—not imitative, as is the modern English school, and not more indebted to foreign sources than any other progressive and liberal art is to the lessons given it by its practisers in other civilized communities. For ifnationalis to mean isolated and petrified, by all means let us forswear nationalism.
Shakspere’s songs are scattered throughout his works, and were evidently written for music. Both old and new composers have set them to music, and of the latter none so happily as Bishop Weelkes and John Dowland, his contemporaries and friends; the latter, the composer of Shakspere’s favorite song (not his own), “Awake, sweet Love,” often wrote music for his words. In his plays Shakspere has introduced many fragments ofoldsongs and ballads; but Ritson says of him: “This admirable writer composed the most beautiful and excellent songs, which no one, so far as we know, can be said to have done before him, nor has any one excelled him since.” This statement is qualified by an exception in favor of Marlowe, a predecessor of Shakspere, and the author of the “Passionate Shepherd to his Love”; and besides, it means that he was the first great poet among the song-writers, who, in comparison with him, might be called mere ballad-mongers. Shakspere’s love for the old, simple, touching music of his native land, shown on many occasions throughout his works, is most exquisitely expressed in the following passage fromTwelfth Night:
“Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,That old and antique song we had last night:Methought it did relieve my passion much,More than light airs and recollected termsOf these most brisk and giddy-paced times.…O fellow, come, the song we had last night.Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,[165]Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,And dallies with the innocence of love,Like the old age.”
“Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,That old and antique song we had last night:Methought it did relieve my passion much,More than light airs and recollected termsOf these most brisk and giddy-paced times.…O fellow, come, the song we had last night.Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,[165]Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,And dallies with the innocence of love,Like the old age.”
“Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,That old and antique song we had last night:Methought it did relieve my passion much,More than light airs and recollected termsOf these most brisk and giddy-paced times.…O fellow, come, the song we had last night.Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,[165]Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,And dallies with the innocence of love,Like the old age.”
“Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song we had last night:
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
…
O fellow, come, the song we had last night.
Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,[165]
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.”
Though Shakspere’s plays weremarked with the coarseness of speech common in his time, and therefore not, as some have thought, chargeable to him in particular, his songs, on the contrary, are of singular daintiness. They are too well known to be quoted here, but they breathe the very spirit of music, being evidently intended to be sung and popularly known. The chorus, or rather refrain, of one, beginning, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” runs thus:
“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.Then heigh ho! the holly!This life is most jolly!”
“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.Then heigh ho! the holly!This life is most jolly!”
“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.Then heigh ho! the holly!This life is most jolly!”
“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly!”
The “Serenade to Sylvia” is lovely, chaste and delicate in speech as it is playful in form; and the fairy song “Over hill, over dale,” is like the song of a chorus of animated flowers. The description of the cowslips is very poetic:
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,In their gold coats spots you see—Those be rubies, fairy favors;In those freckles live their savors.I must go seek some dew-drops here,And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,In their gold coats spots you see—Those be rubies, fairy favors;In those freckles live their savors.I must go seek some dew-drops here,And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,In their gold coats spots you see—Those be rubies, fairy favors;In those freckles live their savors.I must go seek some dew-drops here,And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see—
Those be rubies, fairy favors;
In those freckles live their savors.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”
Bishop Hall, in 1597, published a satirical poem in which he complains that madrigals and ballads were “sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail”—that is, by maids spinning and milking, or fetching water; and Lord Surrey, in one of his poems, says (not satirically, however):
“My mother’s maids, when they do sit and spin,They sing a song.”
“My mother’s maids, when they do sit and spin,They sing a song.”
“My mother’s maids, when they do sit and spin,They sing a song.”
“My mother’s maids, when they do sit and spin,
They sing a song.”
Now, we gather what was the style of these songs of peasant girls and laborers from the writings of good old Izaak Walton, who mentions, as a common occurrence, that he often met, in the fields bordering the river Lee, a handsome milkmaid who sang like a nightingale, her voice being good and the ditties fitted for it. “She sang the smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago, and the milkmaid’s mother sang the answer to it which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days.… They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good; I think much better than that now in fashion in this critical age.”[166]He wrote in the reign of Charles I., and already deplored the influx of more pretentious songs; but those he mentions with such commendation were the famous “Passionate Shepherd to his Love” and the song beginning “If all the world and love were young,” two exquisite lyrics of an elegance much above what is now termed the taste of the vulgar.
Izaak Walton was as fond of music as of angling, and quotes many of the popular songs of his day. He was a quiet man, and only describes the pastimes of humble life. He used to rest from his labors in an “honest ale-house” and a “cleanly room,” where he and his fellow-fishermen, and sometimes the milkmaid, whiled away the evenings by singing ballads and duets. Any casual dropper-in was expected to take his part; and among the music mentioned as common in these gatherings are numbers of “ketches,” or, as we should say, catches. The music of one of his favorite duets, “Man’s life is but vain, for ’tis subject to pain,” is given in the old editions of his book. It is simple and pretty; the composer was Mr. H. Lawes. Other songs, favorites of his, were “Come, shepherds, deck your heads”; “As at noon Dulcina rested”; “Phillida flouts me”; and that touching elegy, “Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,” byGeorge Herbert. This is as full of meaning as it is short:
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,The bridal of the earth and sky,Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-nightFor thou must die.“Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,Thy root is ever in its grave,And thou must die.“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,A box where sweets compacted lie,My music shows you have your closesAnd all must die.“Only a sweet and virtuous soul,Like seasoned timber never gives,But, when the whole world turns to coal,Then chiefly lives.”
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,The bridal of the earth and sky,Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-nightFor thou must die.“Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,Thy root is ever in its grave,And thou must die.“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,A box where sweets compacted lie,My music shows you have your closesAnd all must die.“Only a sweet and virtuous soul,Like seasoned timber never gives,But, when the whole world turns to coal,Then chiefly lives.”
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,The bridal of the earth and sky,Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-nightFor thou must die.
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night
For thou must die.
“Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,Thy root is ever in its grave,And thou must die.
“Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,A box where sweets compacted lie,My music shows you have your closesAnd all must die.
“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows you have your closes
And all must die.
“Only a sweet and virtuous soul,Like seasoned timber never gives,But, when the whole world turns to coal,Then chiefly lives.”
“Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber never gives,
But, when the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.”
Sir Henry Wotton’s song for the poor countryman, beginning—
“Fly from our country pastimes, fly,Sad troops of human misery!Come, serene looks,Clear as the crystal brooks,Or the pure, azured heaven that smiles to seeThe rich attendance on our poverty!”
“Fly from our country pastimes, fly,Sad troops of human misery!Come, serene looks,Clear as the crystal brooks,Or the pure, azured heaven that smiles to seeThe rich attendance on our poverty!”
“Fly from our country pastimes, fly,Sad troops of human misery!Come, serene looks,Clear as the crystal brooks,Or the pure, azured heaven that smiles to seeThe rich attendance on our poverty!”
“Fly from our country pastimes, fly,
Sad troops of human misery!
Come, serene looks,
Clear as the crystal brooks,
Or the pure, azured heaven that smiles to see
The rich attendance on our poverty!”
and some verses of Dr. Donne (both these writers being contemporaries of James I.), are also mentioned by Walton as popular among the lower classes in his day. Here is another instance of the power of song over the peasantry in the early part of the XVIIth century. In the spring of 1613, on the occasion of Queen Anne of Denmark’s return from Bath, where she had gone for her health, she was met on Salisbury Plain by the Rev. George Fereby, vicar of some obscure country parish, who entreated that her majesty would be pleased to listen to a concert performed by his people. “When the queen signified her assent, there rose out of the ravine a handsome company, dressed as Druids and as British shepherds and shepherdesses, who sang a greeting, beginning with these words, to a melody which greatly pleased the musical taste of her majesty:
“‘Shine, oh! shine, thou sacred star,On seely[167]shepherd swains!’
“‘Shine, oh! shine, thou sacred star,On seely[167]shepherd swains!’
“‘Shine, oh! shine, thou sacred star,On seely[167]shepherd swains!’
“‘Shine, oh! shine, thou sacred star,
On seely[167]shepherd swains!’
We should suppose, from the commencing words, that this poem had originally been a Nativity hymn pertaining to the ancient church; and it is possible that the melody might be traced to the same source.… The music, the voices, and the romantic dresses, so well corresponding with the mysterious spot where this pastoral concert was stationed, greatly captivated the imagination of the queen.”[168]Anne of Denmark admired and patronized the genius of Ben Jonson, the writer of several musical masques often performed at court by the queen and her noble attendants. The really classical time of English poetry and music was before the Commonwealth, and popular music certainly received a blow during the Puritan rule. Songs and ballads were forbidden as profane; and in 1656 Cromwell enacted that “if any of the persons commonly called fiddlers or minstrels shall at any time be taken playing, fiddling, and making music in any inn, ale-house, or tavern, or shall be taken proffering themselves, or designing or entreating any to hear them play or make music in any of the places aforesaid,” they should be “adjudged and declared to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.” Fines and imprisonments were often the penalties attached to a disregard of these ordinances; but this opposition only turned the course of popular song into political channels, and it became a point of honor among the Royalists to listen to, applaud, and protect the veriest scamp who called himself a minstrel. Songs were written with no poetical merit, but full of political allusions, bittertaunts and sneers; and it was the delight of the Cavaliers to sing these doggerel rhymes and make the wandering fiddlers sing them. Many a brawl owed its origin to this. Even certain tunes, without any words, were considered as identified with political principle, and led to dangerous ebullitions of feeling, or kept alive party prejudices in those who heard them. Popular music has always been a powerful engine for good or bad, in a political sense. Half the loyalty of the Jacobites of Scotland in the XVIIIth century was due to inflammatory songs; Körner’s lyrics fired German patriotism against Napoleon; and there has never been a party of any kind that did not speedily adopt some representative melody to fan the ardor of its adherents.
But if music and poetry were proscribed by the over-rigorous Puritans, a worse excess was fostered by the immoral reign of Charles II. The Restoration polluted the stream which the Commonwealth had attempted to dam up. Just as, in a spirit of bravado and contradiction, the Cavaliers had ostentatiously made cursing and swearing a badge of their party, to spite the sanctimoniousness of the Roundheads, so they affected to oppose to the latter’s psalm-singing roaring and immodest songs. Ritson says that Charles II. tried his hand at song-writing, and quotes a piece by him, beginning:
“I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.”
“I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.”
“I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.”
“I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.”
“Though by no means remarkable for poetical merit,” says the critic, “it has certainly enough for the composition of a king.” Molière was not more severe on the attempts of Louis XIV. But though the general spirit of the age was licentious, many good songs were still written. Sedley, Rochester, Dorset, Sheffield, and others wrote unexceptionable ones, and the great Dryden flourished in this reign. One of his odes, “On S. Cecilia’s Day,” is thoroughly musical in its rhythm, the refrains at the end of each stanza having the ring of some of the old German Minnesongs of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries. But his verses were scarcely simple or flowing enough to become popular in the widest sense, which honor rather belonged to the less celebrated poets of his day. Lord Dorset, for instance, was the author of a sea-song said to have been written the night before an engagement with the Dutch in 1665, and which, from its admirable ease, flow, and tenderness, became at once popular with all classes. The circumstances under which it was supposed to be written had, no doubt, something to do with its popularity; but Dr. Johnson says: “Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I have heard from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good hereditary intelligence, that Lord Dorset had been a week employed upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his courage.” The anonymous writer to whom we have referred[169]tells us that “the shorter pieces of most of the poets of the time of Charles II. had a rhythm and cadence particularly well suited to music. They were, in short, what the Italians callcantabile, or fit to be sung.… In the succeeding reigns, with the growthof our literature, there was a considerable increase in song-writing; most of our poets of eminence, and some who had no eminence except what they obtained in that way, devoting themselves occasionally to the composition of lyrical pieces. Prior, Rowe, Steele, Philips, Parnell, Gay, and others contributed a stock which might advantageously be referred to by the composers of our own times.” Prior was a friend andprotégéof Lord Dorset, who sent him to Cambridge and paid for his education there. Parnell was an Irishman. His “Hymn to Contentment” is a sort of counterpart to the old song “My Mind to me a Kingdom is”:
“Lovely, lasting peace, appear;This world itself, if thou art here,Is once again with Eden blest,And man contains it in his breast.”
“Lovely, lasting peace, appear;This world itself, if thou art here,Is once again with Eden blest,And man contains it in his breast.”
“Lovely, lasting peace, appear;This world itself, if thou art here,Is once again with Eden blest,And man contains it in his breast.”
“Lovely, lasting peace, appear;
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blest,
And man contains it in his breast.”
Gay, the elegant, the humorous, and the pathetic, shows to most advantage in this group. He it was who wrote the famous ballad “Black-eyed Susan,” and many others which, though less known at present, are equally admirable. One of them was afterwards set to music by Handel, and later on by Jackson of Exeter. But music did not keep pace with poetry; and though Purcell, Carey, and one or two other composers flourished in the latter part of the XVIIth and beginning of the XVIIIth centuries, they kept mostly to sacred music, and the new songs of the day were generally set to old tunes. Gay’sBeggar’s Opera, a collection of seventy-two songs, could not boast of a single air composed for the purpose. The music was all old, but the stage, says Dr. Burney, ruined the simplicity of the old airs, as it invariably does all music adapted to dramatic purposes. Indeed, we, in our own day, sometimes have the opportunity of verifying this fact, when old airs or ballads are introduced into operas to which they are unfitted. The “Last Rose of Summer” put into the opera ofMarthais an instance in point; but, worse than that, the writer once heard “Home, Sweet Home” sung during the music-lesson scene in theBarbier de Seville. Adelina Patti was theprima donna, and any one who has seen and heard her can imagine the contrast between the simple, pathetic air and words, and the kittenish, coquettish, Dresden-china style of the singer! Add to this the costume of a Spanishseñoritaand the stage finery of Rosina’s boudoir, not to mention the absurd anachronism involved in a girl of the XVIIth century singing Paine’s touching song. Of course the audience applauded vigorously; for an English audience at the opera goes into action in the spirit of Nelson’s words, “England expects every man to do his duty,” and the incongruousness of the scene never troubles its mind.
Carey tried to stem the downfall of really good popular music by writing both the words and music of the well-known ballad of “Sally in our Alley,” which attained a popularity (using the word in its proper sense) that it has never lost and never will lose. The song was soon known from one end of the country to the other, and, like the old songs, was “whistled o’er the furrowed land” and “sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail.” Addison was no less fond of it than the common people; but the song was an exception in its time, and the poetry of the day never again made its way among the great body of the people, as it had done under the Tudors and the early Stuarts. Music and poetry both grewartificial under the Hanoverian dynasty, and the mannerisms and affectations of rhymers and would-be musical critics were sharply satirized by Pope and Swift. In the reign of Queen Anne the Italian opera was introduced into London, and the silly rage for foreign music,becauseit was foreign, soon worked its way among all classes. Handel brought about the first salutary return to natural and simple musical expression, and, setting many national and pastoral pieces to music, diffused the taste for good music through the intermediate orders of the people, especially the country gentry, but the masses still clung to interminable ballads, with monotonous tunes and no individuality either of sense or of form. Although England could boast of some good native composers and poets in the XVIIIth century—for instance, among the former, Boyce, Arne, Linley, Jackson, Shield, Arnold, etc.—still no good music penetrated into the lower strata of society; for these musicians mostly confined themselves to pieces of greater pretension than anything which was likely to become popular. Wales and the North of England still kept up a better standard, but the general taste of the nation was decidedly vitiated. Dibdin’s sea-songs broke the spell and reached the heart of the people; but this was rather a momentary flash than a permanent resurrection of good taste and discernment. The custom of writing the majority of songs for one voice, we think, had had much to do with destroying the genuine love of music among the people. It seemed to shift the burden of entertainment upon one member of a social gathering, instead of assuming that music was the welcome occupation and pastime of the greater number; and besides this, it no doubt fostered an undue rage for melody, or, as it is vulgarly called,tune. We have often had occasion to notice how bald and meagre—trivial, indeed—a mere thread of melody can sound when sung by one voice, which, if sung in parts, acquires a majestic and full tone. The fashion of solo-singing, which obtains so much in our day, has another disadvantage: it encourages affectation and self-complacency in the singer. The solo-singer is very apt to arrogate to him or herself the merit and effect of the piece; to think more of the individual performance than of the music performed; and to spoil a good piece by interpolating runs and shakes to show off his or her powers of vocal gymnastics. All this was impossible in the old part-songs, where attention and precision were indispensable.
There are hopeful indications at present that England is not utterly sunk into musical indifference, but, strange to say, wherever the good leavendoeswork, it does so from below upwards. The lower classes in the North of England have mainly given the impulse; the higher are still, on the whole, superficial in their tastes and trivial and mediocre in their performances. Even as far back as 1834, the writer in thePenny Magazinealready quoted gives an interesting account of a surprise he met with at a small village in Sussex. (This, be it remembered, is an almost exclusively Saxon district of the country.) Being tired of the solitude of the little inn and the dulness of a country newspaper, he walked down the street of the village, and, in so doing, was brought to a pause before a small cottage, nowise distinguished from the other humblehomesteads of the place, from which proceeded sounds of sweet music. The performance within consisted, not of voices, but of instruments; and the piece was one of great pathos and beauty, and not devoid of musical difficulty. When it was finished, and the performers had rested a few seconds, they executed a German quartet of some pretensions in very good style. This was followed by variations on a popular air by Stephen Storace, which they played in excellent time and with considerable elegance and expression. Several other pieces, chosen with equal good taste, succeeded this, and the stranger enjoyed a musical treat where he little expected one. On making inquiries at the inn, he found that the performers were all young men of the village, humble mechanics and agricultural laborers, who, for some considerable time, had been in the habit of meeting at each other’s houses in the evening, and playing and practising together. The taste had originated with a young man of the place who had acquired a little knowledge of music at Brighton. He had taught some of his comrades, and by degrees they had so increased in number and improved in the art that now, to use the words of the informant, “there were eight or ten that could play by book and in public.”
At that time, and in that part of the country, this was an unusual and remarkable proof of refinement and good taste; but at present, though still the exception, it is no longer quite so rare to find uneducated people able to a certain degree to appreciate good music. Much has been written to vindicate English musical taste within the last thirty or forty years; but still the fact can scarcely be overlooked that, notwithstanding all efforts to the contrary, the standard of taste among the masses is lower than it was in Tudor days.
Every one is familiar with the choral unions, the glee-clubs, the carol-singing, Leslie’s choir, and Hullah’s methods, which all go far to raise the taste of the people and enlist the vocal powers of many who otherwise would have been tempted to leave singing to the “mounseers” and other “furriners,” as the only thing those benighted individuals could be good for. There is, as there has been for many generations, the Chapel Royal, a sort of informal school of music; there is the Academy of Music; there are “Crystal Palace” and “Monday Popular Concerts”; musical festivals every year in the various cathedrals, oratorios in Exeter Hall; and there soon will be a “National School of Music,” which is to be a climax in musical education, the pride of the representative bodies of wealthy and noble England (for princes and corporations have vied with each other in founding scholarships); but with all this, the palmy days of the Tudors are dead and gone beyond the power of man to galvanize them into new activity. True, every young woman plays the pianoforte; you see that instrument in the grocer’s best parlor and the farmer’s keeping-room; but the sort of music played upon it is trivial and foreign, an exotic in the life of the performer, a boarding-school accomplishment, not a labor of love. You can hear “Beautiful Star,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” and Mozart’s “Agnus Dei” sung one after the other, with the same expression, the same “strumminess,” the same stolidity, or the same affected languor, and you will perceivethat, though the singer mayknowthem, she neither feels nor understands them. Moore’s melodies, too, you hearad nauseam, murdered and slurred over anyhow; but both the delicacy of the poetry and the pathos of the music are a dead-letter to the performer. But though a few songs by good writers are popular in the middle classes—for instance, Tennyson’s “Brook” and “Come into the garden, Maud,” the immortal and almost unspoilable “Home, Sweet Home”—yet there is also a dark side to the picture in the prevalence of comic songs, low, slangy ballads, sham negro melodies (utterly unlike the real old pathetic plantation-song), and other degrading entertainments classed under the title of “popular music.” The higher classes give little countenance or aid to the upward movement in music, and still look upon the art as an adjunct of fashion. With such disadvantages, it is a wonder that England has struggled back into the ranks of music-lovers at all, even though, as yet, she can take but a subordinate place among them.
A great deterioration having been observable for some time past in the multitudinous little pictures published in Paris, ostensibly with a religious object, some of the more thoughtful writers in Catholic periodicals have on several recent occasions earnestly protested against the form these representations are taking. Their remonstrances are, however, as yet unsuccessful. The “article” continues to be produced on an increasing scale, and is daily transmitted in immense quantities, not only to the farthest extremities of the territory, but far beyond, especially to England and America, to ruin taste, sentimentalize piety, and “give occasion to the enemy to”derideif not to “blaspheme.”
The bishops of France have already turned their attention to this unhealthy state of things in what may be called pictorial literature for the pious, and efforts are being made in the higher regions of ecclesiastical authority to arrest its deterioration. In the synod lately held at Lyons severe censure was passed on the objectionable treatment of sacred things so much in vogue in certain quarters; and, still more recently, Father Matignon, in his conference on “The Artist,” condemned these “grotesque interpretations of religious truths, which render them ridiculous in the eyes of unbelievers, and corrupt the taste of the faithful.” The eloquent preacher at the same time recommended the Catholic journalists to denounce a species of commerce as ignorant as it is mercenary, and counselled the members of the priesthood to “declare unrelenting war against this school ofpettiness, which is daily gaining ground in France, and which gives a trivial and vulgar aspect to things the most sacred.”
This appeal has not been without effect. There appears in theMonde, from the pen of M. Léon Gautier, the author of several pious and learned works, a Letter “Against Certain Pictures,” addressed “to the president of the Conference of T——,” in which the absurdity of these silly compositions is attacked with much spirit and good sense. TheSemaine Religieuse de Parisreproduces this letter, with an entreaty to its readers to enroll themselves in the crusade therein preached by the eminent writer—a crusade the opportuneness of which must be only too evident to every thoughtful and religious mind. M. Léon Gautier writes as follows: