It is impossible here to give even an outline of the history of Songs and Singing in England. The general statement must suffice that vocal music, accompanied by viols and harps, with songs and catches, were common in the year 1230 in France; and any reader of Chaucer and Gower may see for himself that vocal music was flourishing in the 14th century in England. The English Round or Catch, mentioned above, 'Sumer is icumen in,' is most probably of the 13th century, and that alone would be sufficient to characterise the popular vocal music of that day. This composition is advanced in every way, being very melodious, and at the same time showing that vocal harmony (i.e., singing in parts) was greatly appreciated.

To proceed to a time nearer the age with which we are concerned—in Henry VII.'s reign, there were many songs written, some for voices only, and some with instrumental accompaniment. Amongst the former are two songs in three parts, the music by William Cornyshe, Junior, which are given in Hawkins.

Skelton wrote the words of the first, 'Ah, beshrew you by my fay,' which is very coarse in tone, as was frequently the case with him; and the second one, 'Hoyday, jolly ruttekin,' is a satire on the drunken habits of the Flemings who came over with Anne of Cleves. Mrs Page (Wiv. II, i, 23) refers to these Dutchmen, where, after receiving Falstaff's love-letter, she exclaims, 'what an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish Drunkard picked (with the devil's name!) out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me?'

The following is a curious picture by 'Skelton, Laureate,' of an ignorant singer, who appears to have been throwing mud at the poet. Skelton gives us a sad account both of his morals and his music.

The 3rd verse begins—

Further on we read—

Skelton's main objection to this person is that he, being in reality of very humble origin, presumed on his very doubtful musical abilities to gain a footing amongst his betters. As he says, 'For Jak wold be a Jentilman that late was a grome.'

Evidently 'Jak' had managed to make good his position as a fashionable teacher of singing, in spite of the defects plainly mentioned in the above verses. In the first verse, 'counter' is a musical term, here used with the meaning of 'to embroider' the tale. 'Knack' is still used in Yorkshire for 'affected talk.' 'Monachord' is the ancient one-stringed fiddle called Tromba Marina, and is here used as a joke on 'monachi' or 'holy water clarks.' In verse 2, 'rule and space' is simply 'line and space,' i.e., on the musical staff. 'Solfyth too haute' is 'Solfa's too high.' The 'my' which was 'too sharp' is the Mi, the seventh note of the scale, mentioned above as the critical point in Solfa. In verse 3, 'lewde lewte' means merely 'vulgar lute'; and 'Rotybulle Joyse' is the title of an old song. The 'payre of clavicordys' is the clavichord, which in 1536 was a keyed instrument of much the same kind as the virginals,[16] with about three and a half octaves. It was used by nuns, and therefore had its strings muffled with bits of cloth to deaden the sound.

The last three lines quoted mention 'solfa' and 'fayne.' The latter is 'feigned' music, or Musica Ficta, which at this time was the art of dislocating the 'Mi,' so as to change the key. It was seldom that more than one flat was found in those days, and this would move the Mi from B to E, thus constituting 'fayned' music.

This account will give a general idea of the kind of songs and singing that were to be found in 1500.

Popular songs, 'Rotybulle Joyse,' with a burden of 'Rumbill downe, tumbill downe,' etc., accompanied by a 'lewde lewte'; clavichord playing; solfaing; singing of both 'prick-' and 'plain-' song, with Musica Ficta; besides the delectable art of 'whysteling'; seem to have been matters in ordinary practice at the beginning of the 16th century. Add to these the songs in three parts, with rounds or catches for several voices, and we have no mean list of musicianly accomplishments, which the men of Shakespeare's day might inherit.

In Shakespeare, besides the songs most commonly known (some of which are by earlier authors), there are allusions to many kinds of vocal music, and scraps of the actual words of old songs—some with accompaniment, some without; a duet; a trio; a chorus; not to mention several rounds, either quoted or alluded to.

It will be useful here to refer to a few of these less known examples.

L.L.L. I, ii, 106. The Ballad of 'The King and the Beggar.' Moth says "The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing, nor the tune."

Id. III, i, 2. Moth begins a song 'Concolinel,' which Armado calls a 'sweet air.'

Various snatches of ballads, ancient and modern—e.g.,

(a) By Falstaff. H. 4. B. II, iv, 32, 'When Arthur first in court began,' 'And was a worthy king.'

(b) By Master Silence. H. 4. B. V, iii, 18. 'Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,' etc.; 'Be merry, be merry, my wife has all,' etc.; 'A cup of wine, that's brisk and fine,' etc. 'Fill the cup, and let it come,' etc.; 'Do me right, And dub me knight,' etc.; 'and Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.'

(c) By Benedick, Much Ado V, ii, 23. 'The god of love.'

(d) The old tune 'Light o' love' [see Appendix], the original words of which are unknown. Much Ado III, iv, 41, 'Clap us into "Light o' love;" that goes without a burden; do you sing it, and I'll dance it.' Here is one verse of 'A very proper Dittie,' to the tune of "Lightie Love" (date 1570).

There were several songs of the 16th century that went to this tune. See also Shakespeare, Gent. I, ii, 80, and Fletcher, Two Noble Kinsmen V, ii, 54.

(e) Song by Parson Evans, Wiv. III, i, 18; 'To shallow rivers,' for words of which see Marlowe's 'Come live with me,' printed in the 'Passionate Pilgrim,' Part xx. [see tunes in Appendix]. Sir Hugh is in a state of nervous excitement, and the word 'rivers' brings 'Babylon' into his head, so he goes on mixing up a portion of the version of Ps. cxxxvii. with Marlowe.

(f) By Sir Toby. Tw. Nt. II, iii, 79, 85, 102. Peg-a-Ramsey, 'Three merry men be we,' 'There dwelt a man in Babylon,' 'O! the twelfth day of December,' 'Farewell, dear heart.' [For tunes, see Appendix].

(g) As You Like It II, v. Song with Chorus, 'Under the greenwood tree,' 2nd verse 'all together here.'

(h) By Pandarus, Troil. III, i, 116. Song, 'Love, love, nothing but love,' accompanied on an 'instrument' by the singer himself.

(i) Another, Id. IV, iv, 14, 'O heart, heavy heart.'

(j) Lear I, iv, 168, two verses sung by the Fool, 'Fools had ne'er less grace in a year.'

(k) Ballads by Autolycus, Winter's Tale IV, ii, 1, 15. 'When daffodils,' 'But shall I go mourn for that.' Id. sc. ii. end, 'Jog on' [see Appendix]; Id. sc. iii. 198, 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man' [Appendix]; Id. l. 219, 'Lawn, as white as driven snow'; Id. l. 262, Ballad of the 'Usurer's wife,' to a 'very doleful tune'; Id. l. 275, Ballad of a Fish, 'very pitiful'; Id. l. 297, A song in three parts, to the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man,' "Get you hence, for I must go"; Id. l. 319, Song, 'Will you buy any tape' (cf. The round by Jenkins, b. 1592, 'Come, pretty maidens,' see Rimbault's Rounds, Canons, and Catches).

(l) Duet by King Cymbeline's two sons; Funeral Song over Imogen, Cymb. IV, ii, 258, 'Fear no more the heat of the sun.'

(m) Stephano's 'scurvy tunes,' Temp. II, ii, 41, 'I shall no more to sea,' 'The master, the swabber,' etc. [Appendix]. Id. l. 175, Caliban's Song, 'Farewell, master,' etc.

(n) Song accompanied by lute. H. 8. III, i. 'Orpheus.'

Besides these there are allusions to the names of various popular tunes and catches, of which the music is still to be had. Amongst these are—

'The Hunt is up' [Appendix]. See Rom. and Jul. III, v, 34. Juliet says of the lark's song, 'that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.' Any rousing morning song, even a love-song, was called a hunts-up. The tune of this song was also sung (in 1584) to 'O sweete Olyver, leave me not behind the,' but altering the time to 4 in a bar. See As You Like It III, iii, 95.

'Heart's ease' [Appendix], the words of which are not known. Tune before 1560. See Romeo IV, v, 100.

Id., 'My heart is full of woe.'

Id. l. 125. 'When griping grief' [Appendix], by Richard Edwards, gentleman of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, printed in the 'Paradyse of daynty Devises' (printed 1577). Hawkins gives four verses, the first of which is here quoted by Shakespeare, but with several variations—

The last verse is charming—

'Green Sleeves' [Appendix].

Wiv. II, i, 60.

Also see Wiv. V, v, 20. The tune is given in its most complete form by Chappell, and is probably of Henry VIII.'s time. The ballad was published in 1580, with title, 'A new Northerne dittye of the Ladye Greene Sleeves.' Verse 1 is as follows:—

The 'Hundredth Psalm' (All people that on earth do dwell) will only adhere and keep place with the tune of Green Sleeves to a certain extent. If the reader will try to sing it to the tune in the Appendix, he will find that in the first half he is led into several false accents; while the second half is quite unmanageable without altering the notes. There is, however, a form of the tune in Hawkins which is much further off 'the truth of the words,' for it has exactly the right quantity of notes, but the accents are all as wrong as possible, thus—

It may be that this form of 'Green Sleeves' was known better than the older one in Shakespeare's day.

'Carman's whistle' [Appendix].

H. 4. B. III, ii, 320. Falstaff soliloquises on Shallow's lies concerning his wild youth.

The Carman's Whistle was a popular Elizabethan tune, and was arranged as a virginal lesson by Byrd. This arrangement can be had most readily in Litolff's publication, 'Les maÎtres du Clavecin.'

The 'fancies' referred to above are the 'Fantazies' already remarked on (chest of viols); and the 'Goodnights' are songs in memoriam, or dirges.

'Fortune my foe.' [Appendix]. Merry Wives III, iii, 62. Falstaff (to Mrs Ford). 'I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend.' This old tune is at latest of Elizabeth's time, and was sung to the ancient ballad of "Titus Andronicus." The first verse of 'Fortune my foe' is as follows:—

'Ophelia's Songs.' Hamlet IV, v. [Appendix]. 'How should I your true love know'; 'Good morrow, 'tis St Valentine's day'; 'They bore him barefaste'; 'Bonny sweet Robin'; 'And will he not come again.'

The one line of 'Bonny sweet Robin' is all that remains of the song, except the title, which is also the first line—viz., 'My Robin is to the greenwood gone.' The line Shakespeare gives would be the last. One tune to it is at any rate older than 1597.

Lastly, there are the old catches, 'Hold thy peace,' sung by Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste in Twelfth Night II, iii; 'Jack boy, ho boy, news, The cat is in the well,' etc., referred to by Grumio in Shrew IV, i, 42; besides 'Flout 'em and scout em,' sung by Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban in Tempest III, ii; and 'What shall he have that killed the deer,' for the foresters in As You Like It IV, ii, 5. The original music of the first two, probably much earlier than Shakespeare, is in the Appendix. A Round for four voices by John Hilton (flourished 1600) to 'What shall he have,' is probably the first setting, and may be seen in Rimbault, p. 19. Purcell (1675) set 'Flout 'em' as a catch for three voices, which is in Caulfield's Collection of Shakespeare Vocal Music, 1864. These last two are poor specimens of Catches, so they are not printed here. [The proper reading of 'Flout 'em,' in the 4tos and 1st Fol. is 'Flout 'em and cout 'em! and skowt 'em, and flout 'em! Thought is free.']

The following passage contains a large quantity of the history of songs in the 16th century, and is one of the most important to be found in Shakespeare. Autolycus sells ballads 'of all sizes' among his wares; the country folk, Mopsa, Dorcas, and the Clown, buy them, and afterwards sing them; and the rustic servant distinctly prefers the pedlar's vocalisation to their accustomed 'tabor and pipe,' or even to the 'bagpipe.'

Winter's Tale IV, iii, 181.

The tabor and pipe, in the servant's first speech, were common popular instruments. The tabor, of course, was a small drum, which was used as accompaniment to the pipe, a small whistle with three holes, but with a compass of 18 notes. (See Frontispiece.) In its curiously disproportionate compass, it may be compared to the modern 'Picco' pipe of the music shops. Mersennus (middle of 17th century) mentions an Englishman, John Price, who was an accomplished player. It is played on by Ariel, see a subsequent quotation from The Tempest III, ii, 126 and 152. Also Much Ado II, iii, 13; and the tabor alone, in Twelfth Night III, i.

The Bagpipe[17] was very similar to the instruments of that name which still exist. At the present moment there are four kinds in use—Highland Scotch, Lowland Scotch, Northumbrian, and Irish. The last has bellows instead of a 'bag,' but in other ways they are very much alike. They all have 'drones,' which sound a particular note or notes continually, while the tune is played on the 'chanter.' Shakespeare himself tells us of another variety—viz., the Lincolnshire bagpipe, in Hen. 4. A. I, ii, 76, where Falstaff compares his low spirits to the melancholy 'drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.'[18]

The servant's second speech refers to the character of the words of the popular ballads, which were too often coarse and even indecent.

'Love-songs' are quite a large class, frequently referred to. For instance, Two Gent. II, i, 15.

Rom. II, iv, 15.

besides the passage from Twelfth Nt. II, iii, quoted further on, where Feste offers Sir Toby and Sir Andrew their choice between 'a love-song, or a song of good life.'

The 'delicate burdens,' 'dildos and fadings,' 'jump her and thump her,' are to be found in examples of the period. A Round of Matt. White, 'The Courtier scorns the country clowns' (date about 1600) has for its third and last line 'With a fading, fading, fading, fading,' etc. 'Whoop, do me no harm' has already been spoken of.

In l. 214 of the Winter's Tale passage, Perdita again takes precaution against Autolycus using 'scurrilous words.'

From l. 285 to l. 327, the passage refers to a very interesting department of 16th century singing—viz., the habit of performing songs in three vocal parts. The singers were called Threeman-songmen, and the songs themselves 'Threeman songs,' or 'Freemen's Songs.' [Freemen is simply a corruption of Threemen. Mr Aldis Wright tells me it is analogous to Thills or Fills, for the shafts of a waggon. Rimbault, in the preface to 'Rounds, Canons, and Catches,' is highly indignant with Ritson's 'inconceivably strange notion' that Freemen is only a form of Threemen. Rimbault's reason was that 'Deuteromelia' (1609) does contain Freemen's Songs in four parts. Mr Aldis Wright also gives me the expression 'six-men's song,' from Percy's Reliques, also these definitions, which will all go to settle the matter: Florio, Italian Dictionary, 1611; Strambotti, country gigges, rounds, catches, virelaies or threemen's songs; Cantarini, such as sing threemen's songs; Berlingozzo.... Also a drunken or threemen's song.

Cotgrave, French Dict. 1611; Virelay. m. A virelay, round, freemans song].

Giraldus Cambrensis says that singing in parts was indigenous to the parts beyond the Humber, and on the borders of Yorkshire. Threeman singing may still be heard (not as an exotic), in Wales and the West of England. This last is referred to in the above passage, 'There's scarce a maid westward but she sings it'—viz., the song in three parts.

Shakespeare is strictly historical in making a pedlar, and two country lasses, capable of 'bearing a part' in a composition of this sort.

The company of 'men of hair,' calling themselves 'Saltiers,' may derive their name from the dance, 'Saltarello.' Gallimaufry is 'Galimathias,' a muddle, or hotch potch. (See Merry Wives II, i, 115).

The threemansong men are more particularly described in Winter's Tale IV, ii, 41.

These musical harvesters square closely with the account given in the Introduction, of music amongst the lower classes. Here were 24 good glee singers, with the single defect that their tenors were very weak, 'most of them means [altos] and basses.' The Puritan was most accommodating, and his singing the words of psalms to the tune of the hornpipe would tend to shew that the Old Adam was not all put away as yet. His compromise with his conscience reminds one of the old stories (all too true) of church singers in the 15th and 16th centuries, who would sing the by no means respectable words of popular comic ditties to the solemn strains of the mass 'l'homme armÉ,' or whatever well-known melody the music happened to be constructed on.

An example of a threemansong will be found in the Appendix, 'We be soldiers three.'

Shakespeare also alludes to sacred part-music. Falstaff, by his own account, was a notable singer of Anthems, in which holy service he had lost his voice; he was familiar with members of the celebrated choir of St George's Chapel at Windsor; and was not above practising the metrical Psalmody in his sadder moments.

H. 4. B. I, ii, 182.

H. 4. B. II, i, 88.

Hen. 4. A. II, iv, 137. Falstaff laments the degeneracy of the times.

This last sentence connects curiously with Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards, who were noted for their psalm singing, which indeed gave them the name. These Flemish Protestants, who had fled from the persecutions in their own country, were mostly woollen manufacturers, and were distinguished for their love of Psalmody, throughout the western counties, where they settled. Hence the allusion to 'weavers' and 'Psalms.' But according to the Epilogue of Hen. 4. B., 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.'

Falstaff knew well what a Ballad was too—as the following shews:—

Hen. 4. A. II, ii, 43.

Two other worthy knights claim our attention in the next quotation, which contains many interesting allusions. Inter alia; Sir Toby gives Feste sixpence to sing a song; Sir Andrew follows it up with a 'testril.' The Clown then sings them 'O mistress mine.' [For the original music see Prof. Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' Novello, a collection which every reader of Shakespeare ought to have. Price 2s. 6d.] Then, at Sir Toby's suggestion, they all three sing a catch, or, in his own words, 'draw three souls out of one weaver,' an allusion to the three vocal parts which are evolved from the one melody of the catch, as well as a sly reference to 'weavers' singing catches. (See Introduction.) They sing 'Thou knave,' for which see the Appendix. It is not a good catch, but sounds humorous if done smartly, and perhaps its very roughness suits the circumstances. Next, after Maria's entrance, Toby either quotes the titles, or sings odd lines of four old songs [Appendix]; and when Malvolio comes in, furious with the noise they are making in the middle of the night, he applies precisely those epithets to their proceedings that our histories lead us to expect—e.g., 'gabbling like tinkers,' 'alehouse,' squeaking out your 'cozier's catches' ['cozier' is 'cobbler']. Sir Toby's puns on 'keep time' in ll. 94 and 115 ought not to be missed. To 'keep time' is almost the only virtue a catch singer must have.

Tw. II, iii, 18.

L. 103-114, another song, "Farewell, dear heart" [Appendix].

It is perhaps necessary to explain the nature of a Catch, or Round, more clearly. The two names were interchangeable in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was not till quite modern times that 'Catch' implied a necessary quibble in the words, deliberately arranged by the writer. First, a Catch or Round of the best type of Elizabethan times consisted of one melody, generally perfectly continuous. Secondly, the said melody was always divisible into a certain number of equal sections, varying from three to six, or even eight; and as many sections as there were, so many voices were necessary. Thirdly, each of these equal sections was deliberately arranged so as to make Harmony with every other.

Here are the words of a Round of the 17th century, which is divisible into three equal sections, and therefore is sung by three voices.

1. 'Cuckoo! Hark! how he sings to us.
2. Good news the cuckoo brings to us;
3. Spring is here, says the cuckoo.'