I. C. U. B. A. K. (-nave)

And evermore will be : Though John Cooke he says nay, O what a Knave is he.
The true nature of the catch as distinguished from the round in general is very well indicated by a couplet quoted in the preface to Pammelia :
Mirth and music to the cunning catcher [i.e., catch-singer] , Derth and physic to the coney-catcher —
where, besides the quaint rhymes of mirth and music to derth and physic^ the catch lies in the assimilation oi coney- catcher to cunning catcher in rapid utterance. This preface further affords a specimen of catch-translation in interpret- ing the Latin, qui canere potest^ canat (i.e., whoever can sing, let him sing) by catch that catch can^ as who should say, whoever can sing, let him sing catches. This Catch that Catch Can was the title of a collection of catches pub- lished by John Hilton in 1562.
I must leave the subject of ballads — ^which were spelled " ballets " in this time, or fa-las, as they were often called — ^in order to say something, if only of the briefest, about the instrumental music of Shakspere's time. It is proper, before quite abandoning the subject of vocal music, to mention that a favourite mode of it in Shakspere's time — and a curious one to us, I fancy — was that of musical declamation accompanied by an instrument. This was the recitative accompagnato of the Italians, some-
THE MUSIC OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 51
times called musica narrativay or music in which a story could be told. Its introducer in England, and most emi- nent illustrator, was Nicholas Lanier. For example, a cele- brated masque was written by Ben Jonson and Nicholas Lanier to be performed in the style of recitativo accompa- gnato. Not only was the music of this masque written by Lanier, but he performed the vocal part of it, reciting the poem in the musica narrativa way, with great effect. Lanier did not confine himself, however, to the recitative, but wrote many other musical compositions which appear in the later collections of the time. Besides his name, it would not be proper for me to omit mention of those of Cooper (who after a visit to Italy styled himself Coperario) and Ferabasco.
Secular instrumental music was usually one of the following three sorts. Where it was concerted for orches- tral instruments, it was often the parts of part-songs merely played instead of being sung ; as indicated in the title of one of William Bird's publications, printed in 161 1 : Psalms y Songs y and Sonets; some solemne^ others joyfully framed to the life of the words y fit for voices or viols ^ of ^y^i 5, and 6 parts.
The music for the virginals was usually a melody of some sort — a dance-tune or old air — played by one hand, while the other executed all manner of endless vari- ations upon it. Several of these compositions of contem- porary writers remain to us, notably a collection of them in what is known as Slueen Elizabeths Virginal Booky and they show passages of such difficulty as must have required great technic for their execution upon the instruments of that time.
Shakspere's well-known sonnet on the virginals comes in most appropriately here :
52 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
CXXVIII
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway*st The wiry concord that mine car confounds. Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand. Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ? To be so tickled they would change their state And situation with those dancing chips O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait. Making dead wood more blest than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this. Give them thy fingers, me thy lips, to kiss.
A third sort of instrumental music — and perhaps the most highly esteemed, as such — is indicated in the title of a publication by John Dowland, one of the most cele- brated musicians of this period. This was called Lachri- mae ; or Seaven Teares figured in seaven passionate Pavans ; with divers other Pavans^ Galiardsj and Almandsy set forth for the Lutey Viols y or Violins y in five parts. These dances^ the Pavan, the Galliard, etc., are highly characteristic of Shakspere's time, and merit some description.
The Pavan was a slow dance, always in ^ time, or at any rate common time, and was so called from pavo, a peacock; the significance of the name being that the Pavan was a stately measure, and the spreading of the long trains of the ladies, or of the long gowns in which it was danced by noblemen, was like the spreading of the peacock's tail.
It was customary after the slow movement of the Pa- van to follow it up with the livelier dance known as the
Tlile-page of Dowland's " First Booke of Songes '*
' IL
1.
THE MUSIC OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 53
Galliard. Selden, in his "Table-talk," complains: "In Queen Elizabeth's time gravity and state were kept up ; at a solemn dancing, first you had the grave measures ; then the corantos and Galliards ; and at length to Frenchmore and the cushion-dance." Here, you observe, the order was first, the Pavan, a slow and stately dance, in common time; then the Galliard, a livelier dance, in ^ (triple) time ; then the cushion-dance, a still livelier measure, so called from the cushion which in one of the figures had to be brought for the dancer to kneel on. It will be in- teresting to musical people to remark here that the succession of movements in a sonata is supposed to be connected with this practice of following up a dance of slow time with one of faster movement, and the like ; an idea which receives support when we think how much of the instrumental music of this time consisted of these dance tunes, or of what were called " fantasias " upon them.
In the Galliard, which thus followed the Pavan like a comedy after a tragedy, the dancer would make four steps forward, with the right and left foot alternately, and then spring into the air. This characteristic caper of the dance is mentioned by Shakspere: in Act I, Scene III, of Twelfth Nighty Sir Toby is unmercifully quizzing Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who has just been bragging with his usual stupidity upon his marvellous strange delight in " masques and revels." Says Sir Toby :
What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
Sir And. Faith, I can cut a caper.
Sir Toby, And I can cut the mutton to *t.
Sir And. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.
Sir Toby. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them ? are they like to take dust, like
54 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
Mistress Mall's picture ? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto ? . . . What dost thou mean ? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard.
Sir John Davies, in his poem The Orchestra^ which is a charming description of the dance in general and of many dances in particular, describes the Galliard as
A swift and wandering dance. With passages uncertain to and fro, . . . With lofty turns and caprioles in the air Which to the lusty tunes accordeth fair.
A Galliard by John Dowland called the " Frog Gal- liard" — I suppose from this jumping feature, or capriole, as Sir John Davies calls it — became a great favourite in Shakspere's time, and did duty not only as a dance tune but as a song to which words were written. It was, in- deed, a common practice then to adopt words to old tunes, instead of writing music to words, as is now nearly always done. Butler speaks of the '^ infinite multitude of ballads with country-dances fitted into them."
This John Dowland whom I have just mentioned is the famous lute-player referred to in the sonnet printed as No. VI, in The Passionate Pilgrim^ for Shak- spere's :
If music and sweet poetry agree. As they must needs, the sister and the brother. Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me, Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense ; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
THE MUSIC OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 55
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phcebus' lute^ the queen of music, makes ;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drowned
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.
One god is god of both, as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.
A later criticism has determined this sonnet to belong, not to Shakspere, but to Robert Nicholson.
Dowland seems from contemporary accounts to have been an agreeable player on the lute, and his work just now mentioned " sets forth " the tunes in it for the lute, as well as for viols, etc. The manner of writing music for the lute was peculiar. The tuning of the instrument {accordatura) was as follows :
Base Tenor Counter-tenor Great Mean
C F B flat D
Small Mean Minikin, Treble, or Chanterelle
G CC
Each string was represented by a line drawn across the page, making a staff of six lines ; and the frets (of which there were eight) were distinguished by letters ^, by r, etc.; so that a letter a placed on the upper line meant that the finger was to be placed on that string at the first fret ; b on the next line would mean place the finger on the tenor string at the second fret ; and so on. This method of notation was called " tablature," and music for the lute was spoken of as being written "in tablature."
Dowland's pieces, you observe, were also arranged for viols. These viols, which have since grown into such commanding importance as the very foundation of the orchestra, were just then beginning their development into the noble instruments of modern times, though no one
S6 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
foresaw those marvellous capacities upon the strings with which we are so familiar. It was the fashion in Shak- spere's time for a gentleman to have a " chest of viols," including instruments of various sizes, from the little or treble violin through the larger sizes to the viola di gamba and violoncello or bass viol. The viola di gamba is men- tioned in Twelfth Night by our friend Sir Toby, who in describing Sir Andrew Aguecheek to Maria tells her he has three thousand ducats a year, " plays o' the viol-de- gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature." This viola di gamba was so called from the Italian word gambay which you recognise as the same with the French jambey leg ; and was so called because it was held between the knees in playing.
In these arrangements of Dowland's for viols we begin to see the faint foreshadowing of that enormous development of concerted instrumental music which has resulted in the grand orchestra of modern times and the stupendous works of Haydn and Beethoven and Wagner. There were in those days what were called " consorts " of music; but aside from these concerted pieces such as Dowland's for viols, and others where the parts of part- songs were played instead of being sung, the main idea in assembling instruments seems to have been simply to make that " loud noise " which has been associated with joy and festivity since, and indeed before, the Psalmist. I find that Queen Elizabeth had in her pay a number of musicians playing different instruments; and perhaps I cannot better sum up the bare outline of instrumental music in Shakspere's time, which I have tried to eke out here and there in these two lectures, than by giving the list of her musicians as they appear upon the royal pay-roll which has been preserved. There were then : 1 6 Trum-
THE MUSIC OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 57
peters, 2 Luters, 2 Harpers, 2 Singers, i Rebeck-player, 6 Sackbuts [the sackbut was a wind instrument with a slide, the progenitor of the modern trombone], 8 "Vyalls," I Bagpipe, 9 " Minstrilles," 3 Dromslades, 2 Flute-play- ers, 2 Players on the Virginals.
Three other sorts of dances I cannot omit to mention, though in the briefest way. These were the Coranto, or current-traverse, which seems to have been an Italian form of country-dance, somewhat like what we call the reel, where two lines are formed and dancers advance from the ends to meet and execute various figures in the middle ; the Paspy (i.e., passepiedj or pass-foot) or Passamezzo, which seems to have been a sort of rapid minuet ; and the Morris-dance, which is commonly (though, I think, on doubtful grounds) supposed to be Moorish-dance, and to have been brought from Spain. Laneham, a writer who gives us some minute descriptions of matters in the per- sonal household of Queen Elizabeth, writing in 1590, mentions a " lively Moris-dauns according to the auncient manner ; six dauncers, Mawd-Marion and the fool." It seems from other authorities that the Morris-dancers fol- lowed a leader, guiding their movements by his, somewhat as in the modern german.
In my first lecture on this subject I gave you several citations from Shakspere's plays to show how he not only loved music with sincere passion, but how often he wrote passages which indicate gleams of insight into its mysteries. I cannot better close this account of music in Shakspere's time than by reading a sonnet in which he sends a keen shaft of inquiry into a mysterious matter lying deep in music as in all art. You remember Jessica's saying, which I read : " I am never merry when I hear sweet music."
This sonnet advances a little farther and moots the question. Why is it, if music makes us sad, that we culti-
58 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
vate it ? Perhaps it has occurred to all of you to ask your- selves why you should go eagerly to see a tragedy on the stage which harrows up your feelings, in apparent opposi- tion to those first principles of ordinary existence which lead us to avoid — instead of seeking — that which gives us pain. Shakspere, as I said, moots this subtle question in the first part of the sonnet ; but he then leaves it, and proceeds to make an argument out of musical concords to induce his young friend to leave his single state and, as it were, make himself a chord, instead of a single tone, by marrying. The first phrase, " Music tcThear," is an apos- trophe to his friend equivalent to " O thou whose voice is music to hear."
VIII
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly ? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Why lov'st thou that which thou recciv'st not gladly ? Or else recciv'st with pleasure thine annoy ? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another. Strikes each in each by mutual ordering ; Resembling Sire and child and happy mother. Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing : Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one. Sings this to thee, ^^ thou single wilt prove none."
And now let us ascend, in conclusion, to a more general view which goes to the root of the whole matter. From the music of Shakspere's time let us pass to the music of Shakspere's life.
Consider for a moment the singular fact that the prin-
THE MUSIC OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 59
ciple upon which all music depends is the principle of opposition, of antagonism. The least glance at the physi- cal basis of sound will recall this clearly to your minds. Here is a stretched string. As stretched, it is exerting a force in this direction. If I pull it aside, disturb it, — cross it, as it were, and trouble it, — with a force acting athwart its own direction, it then, and then only, gives forth its proper tone, makes its rightful music. This principle is general throughout the physics of tone. The vibration which produces a musical sound is always set up by two forces, the one acting athwart the other.
Now it is not difficult to carry this idea over from the physical into the moral world. If it is a fancy, it is certainly not an unprofitable one, that a harmonious life, like a musical tone, comes out of opposition. Be- tween each man, and the world about him, there is a never-ceasing antagonism. It is an antagonism which re- sults from the very constitution of things. Just so far as I am I, and you are you, so far must we diflFer; the mys- terious course of nature, which so often says No to our TeSy with its death and its pain and its other mysterious phenomena — this joins with the force of each individual to oppose the force of each other individual. Everywhere there is antagonism, opposition, thwarting. No person who listens at this moment need go out of his own expe- rience for a single day to find it.
Well, then, the problem of life may be said to be to control these moral vibrations which are set up by our troubles and crosses into those ordered beats which give the musical tone, rather than those conftised and irregular pulses which result in mere unmusical noise. One man's life is like the mere creaking of a wheel, the binding of a saw, the griding of bough against bough, — mere unorgan- ised noise, — while another man's is like that clear and
6o SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
perfect tone of music which results from regular vibrations produced by two steady forces upon a proper material.
Now I find it delightful to think that our dear Master Shakspere was one of the musical tones, and that he wrested this music out of the most fearful antagonisms. The loving study of Shakspere during the last twenty years has developed what seems to me the certainty that about midway of his career some terrible cloud came over his life which for a time darkened his existence with the very blackness of despair. If we divide his career into three periods, we find that to his first period belong Lovers Labour's Losty Midsummer Night's Dream j and all the come- dies ; here, however, in the second period, about 1601- 1602 and on, we find him writing those murky and bitter tragedies of Hamlet y of Leary of Macbethy of Timon. His antagonism has come, and has plucked him rudely out of his position.
But at last marvellously he conquers it, and orders it to sweet music. Here in the third period we find him writing Cymbeliney JVinter's TaUy Tempesty Henry VIII — plays all breathing of reunion after absence, of recon- ciliation, of forgiveness of injuries, of heavenly grace. So he draws his oppositions to harmony ; so he converts his antagonisms into ravishing sounds.
Permit me to hope, therefore, that when life shall come to you, as the tutor of Katharina came to her, and shall hand you your lute with frets on it, you will not cry with the Shrew, " Frets, call you them ? I'll fume with them," but will look upon the frets as simply the conditions of harmony, and will govern your troubles to music.