PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.

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the following:-"A Scotch Song, by Mr Robert Brown"-" A Scotch Song, the words by Mr John Hallam, set to music by Mr John Cottrell”.

Bonny Scotch Lads that kens me weel, the words by Mr Peter Noble, set by Mr John Wilford," &c. These are, no doubt, ludicrous caricatures both of the Scotish music and phraseology, and are merely referred to ir order to show that, about this time, the Scotish style of melody had begun to be very generally appreciated by the English public.

The celebrated Dr Blow, who flourished from 1648 to 1708, is mentioned by Dr Burney as the first English composer who united the Scotish with the English style of melody, and of this, many illustrations will be found in his "Amphion Anglicus," published in 1700; so that its character, at this time, must have been very generally understood. Indeed, we find Dryden, in the following passage of his preface to his modernized version of Chaucer's Poems, also published in 1700, referring to it as a familiar topic of illustration :-"The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends—it was auribus istius temporis accomodata.' They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries;—there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect."

It was in the year 1680 when the Scotish air, "Katherine Ogie," was sung by Mr Abell, a gentleman of the Chapel-Royal, at his concert in Stationers' Hall. But, in reality, little is to be gleaned as to the publication and performance of these airs in England, before the appearance of D'Urfey's Miscellany. We believe that several of them were published in Playford's "Dancing Master," about the middle of the seventeenth century, but we have had no opportunity of examining that work. One Scotish air, however, we have seen in a collection entitled, "Catch that Catch can," published by John Hilton in 1652, and afterwards by Playford in his "Musical Companion" in 1667. This is the well-known tune, "Cold and raw the wind does blow, up in the morning early." It appears here in the shape of a catch, adapted to words which commence

a Hist. vol. iii. p. 453.

C

"I'se gae with thee, my Peggy," and the very same tune is introduced in the second part of Purcell's " Orpheus Britannicus," in the form of a bass to an ode in honour of Queen Mary, the consort of William III.; though how far this had proceeded from an intention on the part of this illustrious composer to do homage to our national melodies, may be judged of from the following statement of the circumstances which gave rise to its introduction into that work, and which we shall give in the words of Sir John Hawkins, by whom the story is told :-"The Queen having a mind, one afternoon, to be entertained with music, sent to Mr Gostling, then one of the chapel, and afterwards Sub-dean of St Paul's, to Henry Purcell, and Mrs Arabella Hunt, who had a very fine voice, and an admirable hand on the lute, with a request to attend her. They obeyed her commands. Mr Gostling and Mrs Hunt sung several compositions of Purcell, who accompanied them on the harpsichord. At length, the Queen beginning to grow tired, asked Mrs Hunt if she could not sing the old Scotch ballad, Cold and raw.' Mrs Hunt answered, 'Yes;' and sung it to her lute. Purcell was all the while sitting at the harpsichord unemployed, and not little nettled at the Queen's preference of a vulgar ballad to his music. But seeing her Majesty delighted with this tune, he determined that she should hear it upon another occasion. And, accordingly, in the next birth-day song, that for the year 1692, he composed an air to the words, May her bright example chace vice, in troops, out of the land,' the bass whereof is the tune to Cold and raw.'” The predilection which Queen Mary, on this occasion, evinced for the music of her ancestors, seems to have been common to the illustrious race from which she was descended, and the anecdote reminds us of a story told somewhere or other, but where we cannot remember, which shews that her uncle, Charles II., possessed a heart capable of being warmed by similar associations. It relates to a Scotish laird who had been introduced to King Charles, with whom he had afterwards had many merry meetings, while in Scotland, enlivened by the song and the dance of his country. Having become unfortunate in his affairs, he is

a

a Hist. vol. iv. p. 6.

said to have found his way to London with the view of making an appeal to the royal favour, and for a long while to have been unable to obtain access, until one day, when he bethought himself of the expedient of slipping into the seat of the organist, at the conclusion of the service, in the Chapel Royal, and of arresting his Majesty's attention as he departed, with the homely and unexpected strain of "Brose and butter". a tune which very naturally awakened the recollection of their former friendship, and in a few minutes brought about the recognition which it was so much his desire to effect.

The known taste and partialities of the Sovereign will at all times do much to influence those of the public, and it is not improbable that they may have had the effect of first introducing Scotish music to the favourable notice of the people of England. We were not aware, till lately, that young ladies, during the reign of Charles II., were taught to sing Scotish songs, as one of the fashionable accomplishments of the day; but we fear that the authority on which we make this statement will not warrant the supposition that the era of their popularity had at that time commenced. The following dialogue occurs in one of Shadwell's Plays, "The Scowrers," written about the year 1670. The dramatis personæ in the scene are two ladies, Clara and Eugenia, and Priscilla, a sort of privileged waiting-woman, with whom they are familiarly chatting over the manner in which they have been brought up :—

"PRISCILLA.

but you had music and dancing?

“EUGENIA. Yes;—an ignorant, illiterate, hopping puppy, that rides his dancing circuit thirty miles about, lights off his tired steed, draws his kit at a poor country creature, and gives her a hitch in her pace that she shall never recover.

"CLARA. And for music, an old hoarse singing man, riding ten miles from his cathedral to quaver out The glories of her birth and state; or, it may be, a Scotch song, more hideous and barbarous than an Irish cronan.

"EUGENIA. And another music-master from the next town, to teach one to twinkle out Lilliburlero upon an old pair of virginals, that sound worse than a tinker's kettle that he cries his work upon."

In Scotland, we know of no more than one publication of secular music which appeared throughout the whole of the seventeenth century. This was a work entitled "Cantus, Songs, and Fancies, to several musicall parts, both apt for voices and viols; with a brief Introduction to Musick, as is taught by Thomas Davidson, in the Musick School of Aberdeen; together also with severall of the Choicest Italian Songs, and New English Ayres, all in three parts, (viz.) two trebles and a bass; most pleasant and delightfull for all humours." Of this book, editions appeared in 1662, 1666, and 1682, printed by John Forbes, in Aberdeen.

How the city of Aberdeen, or, as Forbes more appropriately (for our present purpose) styles it, "the ancient city of Bon Accord," should have distinguished itself above its compeers, and even the metropolis of Scotland, by giving birth to this unique musical production, it is not easy to explain; and we certainly can place no great reliance on the panegyrics bestowed by the publisher, on this "famous place" in his dedication, in which, not satisfied with describing his patrons their "honourable wisdoms the Lord Provost, Bailies, and Town Council," as being "a harmonious heavenly consort of as many musicians as magistrates," he represents the city itself, as no less than "the sanctuary of the sciences, the manse of the muses, and nurserie of all arts," &c.; yea, (he adds,) “the fame of this city, for its admirable knowledge in this divine science, and many other fine enduements, hath almost overspread whole Europe; witness the great confluence of all sorts of persons from each part of the same, who of design have come (much like that of the Queen of Sheba) to hear the sweet chearful psalms, and heavenly melody of famous Bon Accord." And yet, absurd as these bombastic encomiums are, they

* It appears to have been a common practice of the magistrates and citizens of Aberdeen, during the seventeenth century, to parade the streets, singing psalms, on all occasions of public rejoicing. In an act of council of 4th June 1630, for regulating "the solemnitie to be usit for the Queenis delyverie of a young sone," it is ordered that "all the youthes of the toune take thair muskattis, and accompany thair magistratis throw the streitis of the town, in singing psalmes and praising God." Council Register, vol. li. p. 542.

b We We are so fortunate as to possess a description of this "heavenly melody" from another pen than that of Forbes. Mr Richard Franck, Philanthropus, in his "Northern Memoirs, calculated for the meridian of Scotland," originally published in 1658, and reprinted at Edinburgh, in

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appear at least to have had this foundation, that the art was in reality cultivated with some degree of success in this place, one reason for which had, no doubt, been the comparative freedom from civil disunion which the inhabitants of this part of the kingdom enjoyed. The Editor has lately been shown a manuscript music-book of the reign of Charles II., which appears to have belonged to some member of the Keith-Marischal family, wherein, as the title bears, are "airs to three, four, and five parts, by M. Clandam, and other fyne pieces in French, Italian, and Spanish, composed by the best maisters of France; as also, other fine Scotish and Inglish aires, old and new, taught by Louis de France, now music-master of Aberdeen, having been the scholler of the famous musician, M. Lambert, being the King of France's cheife musician, for the method and manner to conduct the voyces." The book contains an excellent system of exercises in solmization, as taught by this Louis de France, who had no doubt been an able and eminent instructor, as he appears shortly afterwards to have been removed to what was probably a more lucrative employment at Edinburgh. In Mr Maidment's "Analecta Scotica," there will be found an application from him to the magistrates of Edinburgh as Governors of Heriot's Hospital, (dated 8th September 1684,) to "allow such of the boys as have ane disposition for the said art to come to the petitioner's school, that he may instruct them in the grounds of musick and the four parts of the psalmes." This seems to have been a gratuitous proposal of M. Louis, proceeding, as he expresses it, from a desire, not "to be idle or wanting in his dutie, whereby he can be serviceable to their honours and the good town," they having appointed him to profess and teach music within the city, with a yearly salary. It seems also, from an old account-book of the Faculty

1821, (p. 229,) speaking of the same music which he heard while at Aberdeen, observes-" Here you shall have such order and decorum of song devotion in the church, as you will admire to hear, though not regulated by a cantor or quirister, but only by an insipid parochial clerk, that never attempts further in the mathematics of musick, than to compleat the parishioners to sing a psalm in tune."