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REIGN OF CHARLES II. 487 |
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any lesson ?" and is answered, " At first sight, Sir." In his Women, beware Women— " I've brought her up to music, dancing, and what not, That may commend her sex, and stir her a husband." To the same purport writes Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy. Under the heid of " Love Melancholy—Artificial Allurements," he says, " A thing nevertheless frequently used, and part of a gentlewoman's bringing up, is to sing, dance, play on the lute or some such instrument, before she can say her Pater no.iter or ten commandments: 'tis the next way their parents think to get them husbands, they are compelled to learn." But when they were married, " "We see this daily verified in our young women and wives, they that being maids took' so much pains to sing, play, and dance, with such cost and charge to their parents to get these graceful qualities, now, being,married, will scarce touch an instrument, they care not for it."
Of the opposite sex Burton says, " Amongst other good qualities an amorous fellow is endowed with, he must learn to sing and dance, play upon some instrument or other, as without doubt he will, if he be truly touched with the loadstone of love: for, as Erasmus hath it, Musicam docet amor, et poesin, love will make them musicians, and to compose ditties, madrigals, elegies, love-sonnets, and sing them to several pretty tunes, to get all good qualities may be had." He also tells us that many silly gentlewomen are won by " gulls and swaggering companions that have nothing in them but a few players' ends and compliments; that dance, sing old ballet tunes, and wear their clothes in fashion with a good grace;—a sweet fine gentleman! a proper man! who could not love him ? "
To return to Charles the Second's reign, I may again quote Pepys, who not only sang at sight, but also played upon the lute, the viol, the violin, and the flageolet; learnt to compose music; had an organ and pair of virginals or harpsichord in his house, and had a thoroughly musical household. And yet, when a young man, was so vehement a roundhead as to say on the day Charles I. was executed, that, were he to preach upon him, his text should be " The memory of the wicked shall rot." His Diary abounds with amusing passages about music, as Ji few brief extracts will prove. And, firstly, as to himself.
Nov. 21, 1660. " At night to my viallin, in my dining roome, and afterwards to my lute there, and I took much pleasure to have the neighbours come forth into the yard to hear me." Dec. 3. " Rose by candle and spent my morning in fiddling till time to go to the office." 28th. " Staid within all the afternoon and evening at my lute with great pleasure." In the cellars at Audley End, " played on my flageolette, there being an excellent echo; " and again, " I took my flageolette and played upon the leads in my garden, when Sir W. Pen came, and there we stayed talking and singing, and drinking great draughts of claret." On Sundays we find him joining with others to sing Ravenscroft's or Lawes' Psalms, or else taking part in cathedral service or an anthem. After morning prayers, " To Gray's Inn Walk, all alone, and with great pleasure seeing all the fine ladies walk there. Myself humming to myself the trillo, which now-a-days is my constant practice since I begun to learn to sing, and find by use that it do |
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