performance. For instance, the seventh and eighth lines in the original run thus, "While my tender flock climbs up the mount, After all, it is still but a limping ditty. LIII. When all alone my bonny love was playing, Music by G. Converso, 1575. I cannot with truth say that these lines are very intelligible; why could not Mr. W. have translated or imitated the original? "Sola soletta i me ne vo cantando, "Ed ho via 'l core piu freddo che giaccio, "E vo d'amor spregiando ogni suo laccio." The expression to stand at gaze, is properly applied to a Deer: "When he stayeth to look at any thing, then he standeth at gaze."-Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, by G. Turberville, 1575. Spenser makes use of the same bombast in praise of Queen Elizabeth: "I saw Phoebus thrust out his golden head LIV. The Fates, alas! too cruel, Have slain before his day Diana's chiefest jewel. With Astrophil is placed above the firmament. Where joys exceed all measure. Music by Luca Marenzio, 1570. In order to understand what all this is about, the reader must be informed that under the name of Diana is represented Queen Elizabeth; Melibous is Sir Francis Walsingham, whose untimely death the poet bewails; and Astrophil, as every reader of old poetry knows, is the nom de guerre of Sir Philip Sydney, who died 1586. This elucidation is given from a separate publication by Watson, entitled an Eclogue on Sir F. Walsingham, Knight, and Privy Councellor to her Majesty, first written in Latin and afterwards done into English: in which the following line occurs as a sort of Burden, "Ante diem (proh! fata) diem Melibœus obivit." LV. All ye that joy in wailing, Come seat yourselves a-row, and weep beside me; That while my life is failing, The world may see what ills in love betide me; And after death do this in my behove, Tell Cressed, Troilus is dead for love. Music by G. M. Nanini, 1580. Chaucer's Poem of Troilus and Cressida was a great fa vourite in Watson's time. "In this excellent book" (so runs the Programme) "is showed the fervent love of Troilus to "Creseide, and her great untruth to him in giving herself "to Diomedes, who in the end did cast her off, so that she came to great misery." The grief of Troilus when he heard of her wretched end, is thus described by the Father of English Poetry: 66 "He swelt for woe, and fell down in a swoon, "For sorrow his heart to brast was boun; 66 Sighing full sadly said, I can no more! "She was untrue, and woe is me therefore!" This Madrigal is also set for five voices by Michael Este, 1604. THOMAS MORLEY. Was a pupil of the celebrated William Byrd, and according to Anthony Wood took his degree as Bachelor of Music in 1588. As a theorist he certainly was excelled by none of his day; but as a composer, I consider him decidedly inferior to Wilbye or Weelkes. His "Introduction to Music" proves him to have been a man of very considerable acquirements; but if we are to believe that he was his own poet, as Messrs. Holland and Cooke (who reprinted some of his works) assert, neither his original compositions nor his adaptations from the Italian do him much credit. Some of the latter especially are execrable. An old stave from Thomas Churchyard's Charitie, a.d. 1595, runs thus: "You may as well say white or red is black, "And sun and moon are steel and marble stone, "As say or think behind a writer's back "He borrowed that which he claims as his own:" yet nevertheless I am constrained to say that Morley has been guilty of several barefaced plagiarisms. Imprimis, from the Madrigals of Felice Anerio, which he has dished up by wholesale in his Canzonets for two voices; and secondly from the Balletti of Gastoldi, which have furnished him with musical ideas (the words of course he had a right to make free use of,) for his " Fa las to five voices." Surely the composer of Lo! where with flow'ry head, and I follow, lo! the footing, needed not to have had recourse to foreign aid. He died about the year 1607. His earliest work appears to be "Canzonets or little short Songs to three voices, newly "published by Thos. Morley, Bachiler of Musicke and one "of the Gentlemen of her Majesty's Royal Chappel, 1593*. "Imprinted at London by Thos. Est, the Assigné of William "Byrd, dwelling in Aldersgate Street, at the sign of the "Black Horse, and are there to be sold." The following is an extract from the dedication to "The "most rare and accomplished Lady, the Lady Marye "Countess of Pembroke+: "Most excellent Lady, give me leave to take this simple "occasion of presenting my humble devotion to honour “you; and if boldness in itself be not too great a fault, pardon and forgive the same; since the cause thereof in me being diverse from that in other men, doth in all ❝right crave a most kind and favourable interpretation. 66 66 * Previous to the year 1591, Morley appears to have been Organist of St. Paul's; for when the Queen was in progress at Elvetham in Hampshire during that year, "A notable consort of six musicians so highly "pleased her, that she gave a new name unto one of those pavans made 'long since by Master Thos. Morley, then Organist of Paul's Church.”Nichols's Progresses, 1591. + Sister to Sir P. Sydney. 66 66 "For whereas they do dedicate with hope of after benefit, "so far am I from this, that your Ladyship in accepting "this of me, doth bind me to you; and I in giving thereof "do infinitely thank you for the same. Receive then, most "worthy Lady, these simple gifts worthy to be received even "of the greatest Princes that the world hath, (not because they are mine, but because they now are yours,) to which "if at any time your Ladyship shall but vouchsafe your heavenly voice, it cannot be, but they will so return per"fumed with the sweetness of that breath, as the air will "be made even delightful thereby, and for that cause come "to be in request and sought for ever after. Upon which assurance resting myself, I humbly take my leave, in all reverence kissing your honorable hands, 66 66 66 "Unto Your Ladyship, devoted in all affection, The Canzonets in this edition, twenty in number, have been reprinted by Holland and Cooke. Four additional ones appear in the edition published A.D. 1606. LVI. See, see, mine own sweet jewell, Both these I give in hope to move thee! And yet thou say'st, I do not love thee. The heart of her who would not be mollified by such a gift must have been harder than the nether millstone: perhaps she was one of those who are of opinion, with Shenstone's fair one, that "... he ne'er could be true "Who could rob a poor bird of its young." |