PART III.

32. A Frenche

33. Scerdustis.

34. My Ladie Rothemayis Lilt.

35. Blew Breiks.

36. Aberdeins Currand.

37. Scullione.

38. My Ladie Laudians Lilt.

39. Lesleis Lilt.

40. The Keeking Glasse.

41. To dance about the Bailzei's Dubb.

42. I left my love behind me.

43. Alace this night yat we suld sinder.

44. Pitt on your shirt on Monday.

45. Horreis Galziard.

46. I dowe not gunne cold.

47. My mistres blush is bonie.

48.

49. A Saraband.

50. (Another copy of Trumpeters Currant.)

PART IV.

51. What if a day.

52. Floodis of Teares

53. Nightingale.

54. The Willow Tree.

55. Marie me marie me quoth the bonnie lass.

56. My Lord Hayis Currand.

57. Jean is best of onie.

58. What high offences hes my fair love taken. 59. Alman Nicholas.

60. Currand Royal, (Sir John Hope's Currand.) 61. Hunters Carrier.

62. Blew ribbenn at the bound rod.

63. I serue a worthie ladie.

PART V.

64. Canareis.

65. Pitt on your shirt on Monday.

66. Scerdustis.

67. Shoe mowpit it coming o'er the lie.

68. Adew Dundie.

69. Thrie Sheips Skinns.

70. Chrichton's gud nicht.

71. Alace I lie my alon I'm lik to die awld.

72. I loue for loue again.

73. Sincopas.

74. Almane Delorne.

75. Who learned you to dance and a towdle.

76. Remember me at eveninge.

77. Love is a labour in vaine.

78. I dare not vowe I love thee.

79. My Lord Dingwalls Currand. 80. Brangill of Poictu.

81. Pantalone.

82. Ane Alman Moreiss.

83. Scullione.

84. My Ladie Laudians Lilt.

85. Queins Currand.

The MS. is without date, and there is great difficulty in speaking as to the precise time when it was written. Indeed, upon this point we cannot venture upon a nearer approximation than twenty or thirty years. From the appearance of the paper, the handwriting, and the fact that some of the tunes are here and there repeated, with very little alteration, as regards the music, it is extremely probable, that they had been taken down at different times, during a period of about that duration. Farther than this, the most careful examination will only permit us to add, that one part of the MS. was written between the years 1615 and 1620, and that while none of it is likely to have been much more recent than the last mentioned era, some of the collection may have been formed as early as the commencement of the seventeenth century.

66

Among the tunes contained in Part I. there is one entitled "Prince Henrei's Maske." Prince Henry, the eldest son of James VI., was born in 1593, and died in 1612. He was created Prince of Wales in 1610, and upon this occasion the Masque here referred to was performed. It will be found in Ben Jonson's works, under the title of " Oberon, or Prince Henry's Masque." Another of these tunes, "Sommerset's Maske," would bring down the date of this part of the MS. to 1615. Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, the favourite of James VI., was created Earl of Somerset in 1613, and in 1614 was married to Lady Frances Howard, the divorced Countess of Essex. The Masque in question, the words of which were written by Dr Campion, and the music by John Cooper or Coperario, (as he preferred to style himself,) Lanière, and others, was performed at the Banqueting-room at Whitehall, on St Stephen's night, (Dec. 26, 1614.)b

Other circumstances of a like nature would indicate that this part of the volume had been written sometime between the years 1615 and 1620. "The Ladie Elizabeth's Maske" obviously refers to the daughter of James VI., who was married to the Prince Palatine of the Rhine, in

* Vol. v. p. 368, Edit. 1756.

Hawkins' Hist. of Music, vol. iii. p. 372.

1613. After her marriage she would most naturally have been designated the Princess Palatine; and as her husband was elected King of Bohemia, in 1619, if the tune had been inserted at any period subsequent to that, the name would most probably have been adapted to her new and more exalted title of "Queen of Bohemia." Another tune, the "Queen's Currant," in Part V., must have referred to Anne of Denmark, the Queen of James VI., who died in 1619. In like manner, in the same Part, we have Lord Dingwall's Currant. This was Sir Richard Preston, who was created Lord Dingwall in 1609, and in 1622 we find him advanced to be Earl of Desmond. There seems, therefore, to be something like a series of contemporaneous historical evidence, tending to shew that great part of the collection had been written out about this time,-a conclusion which is, in some degree, corroborated by the consideration, that the ephemeral character of several of the tunes renders it very unlikely that they would have outlived the immediate and fleeting interest attached to the personages or events which they were intended to celebrate.

There is just one portion of the MS. which appears to be rather newer than the rest; this is Part IV. There is here a tune called "Sir John Hope's Currant." Now, if this related to Sir John Hope, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Lord Advocate to James VI. and Charles I. (and the Editor is not aware of any previous Sir John Hope,) he was knighted and appointed a Lord of Session in 1632. It so happens, however, that there has been an obliteration in this place. The name first given to this tune in the MS. was "Currant Royal." This appears to have been deleted, and "Sir John Hope's Currant" afterwards interpolated, though evidently in the same hand. The superinduction, therefore, of Sir John Hope's name may have taken place a long while after the airs had been written out, so that, as an ex post facto operation, it cannot affect the strong presumptions above alluded to, which point to an

This lady forms the branch by which her present Majesty is connected with the Stuarts. See in "Wit's Recreations," (reprint 1817, vol. ii. p. 26,) the sonnet by Sir Henry Wotton, addressed to "the Queen of Bohemia," beginning "You meaner beauties of the night."