Your Honor's in all humble service, THOMAS WEELKES."
In 1608 appeared Weelkes' last work, "Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices," a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:--"For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind." The verses in Weelkes' song-books are never heavy or laboured; they are always bright, cheerful, and arch.
_Page_ 3. Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute. He had a share in the management of the theatre in the Whitefriars (Collier's "Annals of the Stage," i. 395). His works are of the highest rarity. The delightful lyrics in Jones' song-books have escaped the notice of all the editors of anthologies.
_Page_ 4. Thomas Morley, who was a pupil of William Byrd, was the author of the first systematic treatise on music published in this country--"A plain and easy Introduction to practical Music," 1597, quaintly set down in form of a dialogue. The verses in his collections are mere airy trifles, and hardly bear to be separated from the music.
"About the maypole new," &c., is a translation of some Italian lines, beginning--
"Al suon d'una sampogn' e d'una citera, Sopra l'herbette floride Dansava Tirsi con l'amata Cloride," &c.
In Morley's "Canzonets to three Voices," 1593, we have the following pleasant description of the preparations for a country wedding:--
"Arise, get up, my dear, make haste, begone thee: Lo! where the bride, fair Daphne, tarries on thee. Hark! O hark! yon merry maidens squealing Spice-cakes, sops-in-wine are a-dealing. Run, then run apace And get a bride-lace And gilt rosemary branch the while there yet is catching And then hold fast for fear of old snatching.
Alas! my dear, why weep ye? O fear not that, dear love, the next day keep we. List, yon minstrels! hark how fine they firk it, And how the maidens jerk it! With Kate and Will, Tom and Gill, Now a skip, Then a trip, Finely fet aloft, There again as oft; Hey ho! blessed holiday! All for Daphne's wedding day!"
_Page_ 9. John Wilbye is styled by Oliphant "the first of madrigal writers." He published his "First Set of English Madrigals" in 1598, and his "Second Set" in 1609. The Second Set was dedicated to the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The composer concludes his dedicatory epistle with the prayer, "I beseech the Almighty to make you in all the passages of your life truly happy, as you are in the world's true opinion, virtuous." In the very year when the epistle was written the gifted patroness of art and learning was accused before the Privy Council and ordered to be kept in close confinement. She made her escape, but after a few hours was captured at sea in her flight to Dunkirk, brought back to London, and committed to the Tower, where she died of a broken heart in 1615. It is pleasant to think that the song-book dedicated to her honour may have cheered her in the long hours of solitude. The collection consists chiefly of love-lyrics; but such verses as "Happy, O happy he," &c. (p. 37) and "Draw on, sweet Night" (p. 21), must have been carefully cherished by the poor captive.