A musical tour through the land of the past/Chapter II

by Romain Rolland

 

 

II

AN ENGLISH AMATEUR

(Pepys' Diary).

Nothing gives us a pleasanter idea of musical life in the English society of the Restoration than Pepys' Diary. In this we perceive the place which music held in the home of an intelligent citizen of London.

Samuel Pepys is a well-known figure: I will confine myself to recounting the principal events of his life. The son of a tailor, he was born in London in 1633, and attached himself, to begin with, to the fortunes of Lord Montagu,^[1] Earl of Sandwich. A Liberal, and in touch with the Republicans, after Cromwell's death, under the Restoration, he became clerk to the Exchequer,^[2] and subsequently clerk of the Acts to the Admiralty. He retained this post until 1673, and while holding it rendered great services to the English Navy; with energetic probity he restored order, economy and discipline therein during the critical period of the Plague, the Fire of London and the war with Holland. He was highly esteemed by the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York, later James II. Nevertheless, he was calumniated at the time of the Papist conspiracy, accused of Catholicism and sent to the Tower. He succeeded in clearing himself and was re-appointed to the Navy Council. He remained Secretary to the Admiralty, and high in James' favour, until 1688. After the expulsion of the Stuarts he retired from the Government, but his activity was unabated until his death in 1703. He did not cease to interest himself in letters, the arts and the sciences. In 1684 he was appointed President of the Royal Society. He collaborated in various learned volumes. Magdalen College, Cambridge, possesses his collection of manuscripts: memoirs, engravings, documents relating to the Navy, and five volumes of old English ballads collected by himself; lastly, his Diary, in which he noted, in a shorthand of his own invention, all that he did, day by day, from January, 1659 (1660) to May, 1669. This Diary, with that of his friend, Evelyn, is the most lifelike collection existing of contemporary data relating to the England of his period. In these pages I shall consider the entries relating to music.

*⁠*⁠*

This Secretary to the Navy, this conscientious statesman, was a passionate lover of music; to music he devoted a part of his days. He played the lute, the viol, the theorbo, the flageolet and the recorder,^[3] and to some extent the spinet. It was the custom, among distinguished citizens, to have in their homes a collection of musical instruments, notably a case of six viols, in order to give concerts. Pepys had his little museum of instruments; he flattered himself that they were the best in England; and he played nearly all of them. His greatest pleasure was to sing and to play the flageolet. He carried this flageolet about with him everywhere, on his walks and in the eating-houses.

Then Swan and I to a drinking-house near Temple-Bar, where while he wrote I played on my flageolet till a dish of poached eggs was got ready for us.^[4]

I came back by water playing on my flageolet.^[5]

At night into the garden to play on my flageolet, it being moonshine, where I staid a good while.^[6]

He even ventured upon composition:

Was all day in my chamber, composing some ayres, God forgive me!^[7]

And his compositions—thanks to the composer's high position—enjoyed a great social success, which Pepys was "not a little proud of."^[8]

Eventually he persuaded himself that his works were excellent:

Captain Downing (who loves and understands musique) would by all means have my song of "Beauty retire," which Knipp has spread abroad, and he extols it above anything he ever heard; and without flattery I know it is good in its kind,^[9]

He would solemnly induce actresses to practice his songs :

After dinner I to teach Knipp my new recitative, of "It is decreed," of which she learnt a good part, and I do well like it and believe shall be well pleased when she hath it all, and that it will be found an agreeable thing.^[10]

For the rest, as a person of importance, he did not take the trouble to write his accompaniments himself ; he had them written for him :

Thence going away met Mr. Kingston the organist (my old acquaintance) in the Court, and I took him to the Dog Tavern, and got him to set me a bass to my "It is decreed," which I think will go well. He commends the song (says Pepys ingenuously) not knowing the words, but says the ayre is good, and believes the words are plainly expressed.^[11]

By and by comes Dr. Childe by appointment, and sat with me all the morning making me basses and inward parts to several songs that I desired of him.^[12]

He was also interested in the theory of music :

To my chamber with a good fire, and there spent one hour on Morley's Introduction to Musique, a very good but unmethodical book.^[13]

Walked to Woolwich, all the way reading Playford's "Introduction to Musique," wherein are some things very pretty.^[14]

To Duck Lane to look out for Marsanne, in French, a man that has wrote well of musique, but it is not to be had, but I have given order for its being sent for over, and I did here buy Des Cartes, his little treatise on Musique.^[15]

Making the boy read to me Des Cartes' book of Musick—which I understand not, nor think he did well that writ it, though a most learned man.^[16]

He took a notion to write down his own ideas upon music. These, if we may believe him, were something extraordinary; he was inclined to think that he held the key to the mystery of sounds:

Banister played on his flageolet, and I had a very good discourse with him about musique, so confirming some of my new notions about musique that it puts me upon a resolution to go on and make a scheme and theory of musique not yet ever made in the world.^[17]

Made Tom to prick down some little conceits and notions of mine, in musique, which do mightily encourage me to spend some more thoughts about it; for I fancy, upon good reason, that I am in the right way of unfolding the mystery of this matter, better than ever yet.^[18]

Do not take the man for an empty egoist. What is so delightful in him is the sincerity and the childlike enthusiasm of his love of music. He loves it only too well. He is afraid of it:

We sent for his sister's viall … I played also, which I have not done this long time before upon any instrument, and at last broke up, and I to my office a little while, being fearful of being too much taken with musique, for fear of returning to my old dotage thereon, and so neglect my business as I used to do.^[19]

But he could not help himself: music was the stronger.

God forgive me! I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things, though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctance after my business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However, musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.^[20]

He feels music so acutely that it makes him ill at times:

With my wife and Deb. to the King's House, to see "The Virgin Martyr."^[21] … But that which did please me beyond anything in the whole world was the wind-musique when the angel comes down, which is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife; that neither then, nor all the evening going home, and at home, I was able to think of anything, but remained all night transported, so as I could not believe that ever any musick hath that real command over the soul of a man as this did upon me.^[22] …

But when he is dejected, music is his consolation:

At night home and to my flageolet. Played with pleasure, but with a heavy heart, only it pleased me to think how it may please God I may live to spend my time in the country with plainness and pleasure, though but with little glory. So to supper and to bed.^[23]

Though my heart is still heavy to think of my poor brother, yet I could give way to my fancy to hear Mrs. T. M. play upon the Harpsicon."^[24]

It must be admitted that Pepys had not very often occasion to repair to this consolation, for he was not often melancholy; he regards music rather as an unmixed delight, the most perfect in life:

I do consider that musick is all the pleasure that I live for in the world, and the greatest I can ever expect in the best of my life.^[25]

*⁠*⁠*

All those about him must share his mania for music; and, above all, his wife.

He had married her about the year 1655, when she was only fifteen, and he was twenty-three. He took it into his head to teach her singing, and he was so much in love with her that he found his "apt beyond imagination."^[26] The first lessons were highly successful; both master and pupil were full of enthusiasm.

Sat up late setting my papers in order, and my money also, and teaching my wife her music lesson, in which I take great pleasure.^[27]

So home to my musique, and my wife and I sat singing in my chamber a good while together, and then to bed.^[28]

So far they had sung only unpretentious airs. But Mistress Pepys, when she saw her husband engaging a singing-master for Italian music, felt her self-love wounded and wished to do the same:

This morning my wife and I lay long in bed, and among other things fell into talk of musique, and desired that I would let her learn to sing, which I did consider, and promised her she should. So before I rose, word was brought me that my singing master, Mr. Goodgroome, was come to teach me; and so she rose and this morning began to learn also.^[29]

Here, then, we have her learning difficult French and Italian airs! What imprudence!… Pepys does his best to delude himself, but in vain; he is forced to admit to himself that his wife has but little musical talent.

Singing with my wife, who hath lately^[30] begun to learn, and I think will come to do something, though her eare is not good, nor I, I confess, have patience enough to teach her, or hear her sing now and then a note out of tune, and am to blame that I cannot bear with that in her which is fit I should do with her as a learner, and one that I desire much could sing, and so should encourage her. This I was troubled at, for I do find that I do put her out of heart, and make her fearfull to sing before me.^[31]

Pepys had the more reason to discover that his wife sang out of tune in that he was able, in his own house, to make comparisons which were not to her advantage. It was the custom to keep servants who had some pleasant accomplishment; in the households of Pepys' friends we find musical servants who were true artists. Evans, who was butler to Lady Wright, was a master of the lute and used to give Pepys lessons.^[32] Dutton, wife to the footman of one of his friends, was a magnificent singer.^[33] It was a point of honour with Pepys that his servants likewise should be skilled performers, and as a good husband—not wholly disinterested—he insisted that his wife should have maidservants who were as agreeable to look at as to hear.

First of all came the pretty chambermaid, Ashwell, who played the harpsichord. Pepys used to buy musical scores for her and taught her the principles of her art:

Up to teach Ashwell the rounds of time and other things on the tryangle, and made her take out a Psalm very well, she having a good ear^[34] and hand.^[35]

He makes the little servant dance:

After dinner all the afternoon fiddling upon my viallin (which I have not done many a day) while Ashwell danced above in my upper best chamber, which is a rare room for musique.^[36]

But Ashwell is not enough. We find him writing ingenuously:

I am endeavouring to find a woman for her to my mind, and above all one that understands musique, especially singing.^[37]

He finds the rare bird eventually. Her name is Mercer. At the same time he engages a little page, a musician, sent him by his friend Captain Cooke, master of the Chapel Royal, who had given him four years' training. Pepys' delight is complete.

So back again home, and there my wife and Mercer and Tom and I sat till eleven at night, singing and fiddling, and a great joy it is to see me master of so much pleasure in my house, that it is and will be still, I hope, a constant pleasure to me to be at home. The girl plays pretty well upon the harpsicon, but only ordinary tunes, but hath a good hand; sings a little, but hath a good voyce and eare. My boy, a brave boy, sings finely, and is the most pleasant boy at present, while his ignorant boy's tricks last, that ever I saw.^[38]

He soon wearies of the page. But Mercer grows more delightful every day.

At home I found Mercer playing upon her Vyall, which is a pretty instrument, and so I to the Vyall and singing till late, and so to bed.^[39]

About 11 I home, it being a fine moonshine, and so my wife and Mercer come into the garden, and my business being done, we sang till about twelve at night, with mighty pleasure to ourselves and neighbours, by their casements opening, and so home to supper and to bed.^[40]

And after supper falling to singing with Mercer did however sit up with her, she pleasing me with her singing of "Helpe, helpe,"^[41] till past midnight.^[42]

Poor Mistress Pepys is jealous:

Coming in I find my wife plainly dissatisfied with me, that I can spend so much time with Mercer, teaching her to sing, and could never take the pains with her. Which I acknowledge; but it is because the girl do take musique mighty readily, and she do not, and musique is the thing of the world that I love most.^[43]

Mercer, it seems, is sent away for a time; but Mistress Pepys does not gain much thereby.

Pepys is melancholy.^[44] He finds that his wife really sings very badly. Mercer returns, and the singing parties begin again; and Mistress Pepys' jealousy likewise.

Walked home … it being a little moonshine and fair weather, and so into the garden, and, with Mercer, sang till my wife put me in mind of its being a fast day,^[45] and so I was sorry for it, and stopped.^[46]

Mistress Pepys makes desperate efforts to become a musician; she succeeds—very nearly—in singing trills. Her husband loyally gives her credit for her goodwill.

After dinner my wife and Barker^[47] fell to singing, which pleased me pretty well, my wife taking mighty pains and proud that she shall come to trill and indeed I think she will.^[48]

But virtue, alas, is not rewarded in this world; and the "poor wretch," as Pepys tells us, cannot contrive to sing in tune:

Home to dinner, and before dinner making my wife to sing. Poor wretch! her ear is so bad that it made me angry, till the poor wretch cried to see me so vexed at her, that I think I shall not discourage her so much again … for she hath a great mind to learn, only to please me, and therefore I am mighty unjust in discouraging her so much.^[49]

For some time Pepys constrains himself to patience.

I do think she will come to sing pretty well, and to trill in time.^[50]

Had her sing, which she begins to do with some pleasure to me, more than I expected.^[51]

To bed after hearing my wife sing, who is manifestly come to be more musical in her eare than ever I thought she could have been made, which rejoices me to the heart.^[52]

But these appreciations are better evidence of Pepys' kindliness than of his wife's talent. One day, when he hears a bad singer ("what a beast she is as to singing, not knowing how to sing one note in tune") this confession escapes him:

Worse than my wife a thousand times, so that it do a little reconcile me to her.^[53]

The plucky little woman, in her distress, despairing of success, falls back on the flageolet.

In this Pepys encourages her. Perhaps she will produce fewer false notes on the instrument. He makes arrangements with a teacher, Greeting, and, to encourage her, takes lessons himself.^[54]

So to my house … and with my wife to practice on the flageolet a little, and with great pleasure I see she can readily hit her notes.^[55]

Walk an hour in the garden with my wife, whose growth in musique do begin to please me mightily.^[56]

Mightily pleases with my wife's playing on the flageolet, she taking out any tune almost at first sight, and keeping time to it, which pleased me mightily.^[57]

I to bed, being mightily pleased with my wife's playing so well upon the flageolet, and I am resolved she shall learn to play upon some instrument, for though her eare be bad yet I see she will attain any thing to be done by her hand.^[58]

Henceforth Pepys has a happy household. He records how one August evening he made his wife play the flageolet,

till I slept with great pleasure in bed.^[59]

Do not imagine, however, that he has forgotten his dear Mercer! He continues to arrange singing parties to include her—above all when his wife is not present:

And by and by, it being now about nine o'clock at night, I heard Mercer's voice, and my boy Tom's singing in the garden, which pleased me mightily, I longing to see the girl, having not seen her since my wife went; and so into the garden to her and sang, and then home to supper, and mightily pleased with her company, in talking and singing, and so parted, and to bed.^[60]

Took a coach and called Mercer, and she and I to the Duke of York's play-house, and there saw "The Tempest." … After the play done, I took Mercer by water to Spring Garden, and there with great pleasure walked, and eat, and drank, and sang, making people come about us, to hear us.^[61]

Up by water and to Foxhall (Vauxhall), where we walked a great while, … and it beginning to be dark, we to a corner and sang, that everybody got about to hear us."^[62]

Got Mercer, and she and I in the garden singing till ten at night.^[63]

W. Howe, and a younger brother of his, come to dine with me, and there comes Mercer, … and mighty merry, and after dinner to sing psalms.^[64]

And I have said nothing of the other maid, Barker, of whom Pepys says: "and I do clearly find that as to manner of singing the latter do much the better."^[65]

*⁠*⁠*

All those who visit this musical household are themselves performers:—Pepys' relatives, his brother and sister-in-law, who play excellently on the bass viol;^[66] and his friends, who are all musicians, good or bad. The ladies play the lute, the viol or the harpsichord; sometimes they display so much perseverance that they eventually tire their hearers.

Went to hear Mrs. Turner's daughter … play upon the harpsicon; but, Lord! it was enough to make any man sick to hear her; yet I was forced to commend her highly.^[67]

Mr. Temple's wife fell to play on the harpsicon till she tired everybody, that I left the house without taking leave, and no creature left standing by to hear her.^[68]

All the great personages of the day are able to play and sing.^[69] Pepys' patron, Lord Sandwich, takes part with him in little concerts of chamber music^[70] and composes anthems for three voices.^[71] Wherever one goes one hears music.

For example, at the eating-houses:

Carried my wife and Miss Pierce to Clothworkers' Hall, to dinner, … Our entertainment very good, a brave hall, good company, and very good music. … I was pleased that I could find out a man by his voice, whom I had never seen before, to be one that sang behind the curtaine formerly at Sir W. Davenant's opera.^[72]

And out of doors:

Walked in Spring Garden. … A great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant. … But to hear the nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles, and there a harp.^[73] …

In the country:

There was at a distance, under one of the trees on the common, a company got together that sang. I, at the distance, and so all the rest being a quarter of a mile off, took them for Waytes, so I rode up to them, and found them only voices, some citizens met by chance, that sung four or five parts excellently. I have not been more pleased with a snapp of musique, considering the circumstances of the time and place, in all my life.^[74]

At Bath (when the music is apparently part of the treatment) he is

carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair, home; and there one after another thus carried, I staying above two hours in the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour; and by and by comes musick to play to me, extraordinarily good as ever I heard at London almost, or anywhere: 5s.^[75]

On board ship—on the vessel in which he crossed the Channel with the fleet that brought Charles II. back to England:

the Captain … did give us such musick upon the harp by a fellow that he keeps on board, that I never expect to hear the like again.^[76]

And, in London, among the people. To Pepys' house there comes

a very little fellow, did sing a most excellent bass, and yet a poor fellow, a working goldsmith, that goes without gloves to his hands.

He acquits himself impeccably in a vocal quartet, with Pepys and his friends.^[77]

The theatre naturally fills a great place in the life of this melomaniac. As a matter of fact Pepys constrains himself for a time to go thither only once a month, so that it shall not unduly distract him from his business, and as a measure of economy.^[78] But he cannot wait for the second day in the month!

Took my wife out immediately to the King's Theatre, it being a new month, and once a month I may go.^[79]

And if we run through his entries we see that the rule is soon infringed.

In any case, moreover, even if he takes a vow not to visit the theatre oftener than once a month, he does not forbid himself to summon the theatre to his own house—that is, the folk of the theatre, especially when they are young and pretty singers, such as Mrs. Knipp, of the King's Theatre:—

this baggage^[80] … Knipp, who is pretty enough; but the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and sings the noblest that ever I heard in my life.^[81] …

He passes the night in making her sing his airs, which to him seem admirable,^[80] She rehearses her parts for him. She comes to speak to him in the pit of the theatre.

after her song in the clouds.^[82]

He goes with her by coach to Kensington, to the Grotto. She sings:

and fine ladies listening to us; with infinite pleasure, I enjoyed myself; so to the Tavern there … mighty merry, and sang all the way to town, a most pleasant evening, moonshine, and set them at her house in Covent Garden, and I home, and to bed.^[82]

Ah, the pleasant evenings which Pepys enjoyed in the company of these charming musicians: his wife, his wife's friends, her servants, and the pretty actresses! Sometimes Knipp makes one of them in her stage costume,

as a countrywoman with a straw hat.

Now my house is full, and four fiddlers that play well. … So away with all my company down to the office, and there fell to dancing … and then sang and then danced, and then sang many things of three voices. … Harris sung his Irish song—the strangest in itself, and the prettiest sung by him, that ever I heard. … Our Mercer unexpectedly did sing an Italian song I know not … that did almost ravish me, and made me in love with her more than ever with her singing. …^[83]

Here the best company for musique I ever was in, in my life, and wish I could live and die in it, both for musique and the face of Mrs. Pierce, and my wife and Knipp.^[81] …

Pepys relishes his happiness; at night, on his pillow, he recounts to himself the details of these delightful evenings:

thinking it to be one of the merriest enjoyments I must look for in the world.^[83] …

There is only one shadow on his felicity: music is costly. Completing the description of one of these enchanted evenings, he says:

Only the musique did not please me, they not being contented with less than 30s.^[83]

Pepys does not like paying out money; in which particular he resembles many wealthy music-lovers of his time and our own. Nothing distresses him so much as giving money to an artist, as he ingenuously confesses:

Long with Mr. Berkenshaw in the morning at my musique practice, finishing my song of "Gaze not on Swans," in two parts, which pleases me well, and I did give him £5 for this month or five weeks that he hath taught me, which is a great deal of money and troubled me to part with it.^[84]

So he contrives to quarrel with his teacher (in such a fashion that the quarrel seems to be the other's fault) so soon as he thinks that he has obtained from him all that he wanted.^[85] And when Mr. Berkenshaw has fallen into the snare and broken off his relations with Pepys the latter delights in playing the airs which he has gently wormed out of Mr. Berkenshaw during his lessons:

I find them most incomparable songs as he has set them, of which I am not a little proud, because I am sure none in the world has them but myself, not so much as he himself that set them.^[86]

When there is a question of defending his purse against an artist he has all the wisdom of the serpent. A performer on the viol comes to his house and plays for him "some very fine thing of his own." Pepys is careful not to compliment him too warmly:

for fear he should offer to copy them for me out, and so I be forced to give or lend him something.^[87]

It is not surprising that under these circumstances music seems, to Pepys, the least costly of pleasures.^[88] Nor is it surprising that musicians should die of starvation in this England, where all declare themselves to be passionate lovers of music. They are in the position of those itinerant players who give their performance before a country crowd. The yokels look on and laugh—and turn away when the collection is made.

Mr. Kingston the organist … says many of the musique are ready to starve, they being five years behind-hand for their wages; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke, but that Mr. Kingston met it by chance, and did give 12d. to buy two or three links.^[11]

*⁠*⁠*

This is enough already to enlighten us as to the superficiality of the English passion for music. We shall be still further enlightened when we have done our best to understand Pepys' musical judgments and to ascertain the limits of his taste. How narrow the man is!

Pepys does not care for the old style of singing.^[89] Nor does he care for part-singing:

I am more and more confirmed that singing with many voices is not singing, but a sort of instrumental musique, the sense of the words being lost by not being heard, and especially as they set them with Fuges of words, one after another, whereas singing proper, I think, should be but with one or two voices at most and the counterpart.^[90]

He does not like the Italian masters:

They spent the whole evening singing the best piece of musique counted on all hands in the world, made by Seignor Charissimi, the famous master in Rome. Fine it was, indeed, and too fine for me to judge of.^[91]

I was not taken with this at all. … The composition as to the musique part was exceedingly good, and this justness in keeping time much before any that we have. … Yet I do from my heart believe that I could set words in English and make musique of them more agreeable … than any Italian musique set for the voice.^[92] …

Nor has he any love for Italian singers; above all, he detests the voices of the castrati. He acknowledges only the excellent time and the consummate experience of these artists; but in the matter of taste they remain alien to him and he does not attempt to understand them.^[93]

Still less does he care for the contemporary English school, the school of Cooke, which will at a later date produce Pelham Humphrey, Wise, Blow, and Purcell:

It was indeed both in performance and composition most plainly below what I heard last night,^[94] which I could not have believed.^[95]

Nor is he any fonder of French music:

Impartially I do not find any goodnesse in their ayres (though very good) beyond ours when played by the same hand, I observed in several of Baptiste's (the present great composer) and our Bannister's.^[96]

He detests the music of Charles II.'s French master, Grebus (Grabu):

God forgive me! I never was so little pleased with a concert of musick in my life.^[97]

And, generally speaking, all instrumental music wearies him :

I must confess, whether it be that I hear it but seldom, or that really voice is better, but so it is that I found no pleasure at all in it, and methought two voyces were worth twenty of it.^[98]

What a list of qualities eliminated ! What is left him ? He has just told us; one voice, or two at most, accompanied or not with the lute, the theorbo or the viol. And what are these voices to sing?

Simple melodies, intelligently declaimed: such as those of Lawes, the fashionable idol of the moment, the composer whose name occurs most frequently in the Diary.^[99] As regards the theatre, Pepys appears to have a special liking for the music of Lock, with whom he was personally acquainted,^[100] and that of the composer who wrote the musical score for Massinger's Virgin Martyr in 1668—the music that made him sick for pleasure. In church he is still an admirer of Lock,^[101] and he approves of Ravenscroft's Psalms for four voices, although he finds them very monotonous.^[102]

But at heart he prefers above everything the good old English melodies:

Mrs. Manuel … sings mightily well, and just after the Italian manner, but yet do not please me like one of Mrs. Knipp's songs, to a good English tune.^[103]

Here I did hear Mrs. Manuel and one of the Italians … sing well. But yet I confess I am not delighted so much with it, as to admire it. … and was more pleased to hear Knipp sing two or three little English things that I understood, though the composition of the other, and performance, was very fine.^[104]

But these airs must be strictly, purely English. He does not approve even of the Scottish airs:

At supper there played one of their servants upon the viallin some Scotch tunes only; several, and the best of their country, as they seemed to esteem them, by their praising and admiring them; but, Lord! the strangest ayre that ever I heard in my life, and all of one cast.^[105]

We see that for Pepys music is restricted to a narrow province. It is curious to find such a passion for music combined with this poverty of task! His taste has but one great quality; its frankness. Pepys is at least unassuming; he does not seek to be otherwise; he says sincerely what he feels; his is the British commonsense which mistrusts unreasonable infatuations. The reader will take especial note of the instinctive distrust which he displays in respect of Italian music, which was then beginning its invasion of England. When he hears it at the house of Lord Brouncker, one of the patrons of the Italian musicians then in London, he observes, amid the general enthusiasm:

The women sang well, but that which distinguishes all is this, that in singing, the words are to be considered, and how they are fitted with notes, and then the common accent of the country is to be known and understood by the hearer, or he will never be a good judge of the vocal musique of another country, so that I was not taken with this at all, neither understanding the first, nor by practice reconciled to the latter, so that their motions, and risings and fallings, though it may be pleasing to an Italian, or one that understands the tongue, yet to me it did not. …^[106]

I am convinced more and more, that, as every nation has a particular accent and tone in discourse, so as the tone of one not to agree with or please the other, no more can the fashion of singing to words, for that the better the words are set, the more they take in of the ordinary tone of the country whose language the song speaks, so that a song well composed by an Englishman must be better to an Englishman than it can be to a stranger, or than if set by a stranger in foreign words.^[107]

This is full of good sense, and reminds us of what Addison was to write some fifty years later. This wholesome mistrust should have put the English dilettanti and musicians on their guard against foreign imitations, above all against Italian imitations, which were about to prove so deadly to English music. But Italian art was extremely vigorous, and we have just seen within what narrow limits English taste was restricted. It abandoned the greater part of the field to foreign art, to shut itself up in its little house; a course of extreme imprudence. Foreign music, once it had a foothold in England, sought to complete its conquest. A few of Pepys' remarks show that he himself was beginning to give ground:

To the Queen's chapel, and there did hear the Italians sing; and indeed their musick did appear most admirable to me, beyond anything of ours.^[108]

This is a confession of the approaching defeat at the hands of the Italians, when English music was to abdicate its position.

*⁠*⁠*

I have dwelt at some length on this Diary of an English amateur at the Court of Charles II. I have done so not merely for the amusement of reviving a few agreeable types which have not undergone overmuch variation in a couple of centuries:—the distinguished English gentleman, statesman and artist, thoroughly sane and well-balanced, with the quiet activity, the serenity of mind, the good humour and the rather childlike optimism which one often meets with north of the Channel; pleasantly gifted, as a musician, but superficial, and seeking in music rather a wholesome pleasure, as Milton advised^[109] rather than a passion beyond his control. And around him are other familiar types: Mistress Pepys, the Englishwoman who is determined to be a musician; who perseveringly labours at the keyboard, never becomes discouraged "and has good fingers." And there are others too…

But it is not for this reason that I have undertaken to ransack this Diary. It possesses a real historical interest in that it is a barometer of English musical taste about the year 1660; that is, at the beginning of the golden age of English music. It enables us to understand why this golden age did not last. Whatever the brilliance, and even, at moments, the genius of the music of Purcell's age, it had no roots; above all, it had no soil wherein to strike its roots. The most intelligent and most highly educated public to be found in England, and that which had the greatest love of art, was sincerely interested only in an excessively restricted class of music, which was based on and really derived from poetry: a vocal chamber music for one or two voices, consisting of dialogues, ballads, dances, and poetic songs. Herein lay the essence and the intimate savour of the musical soul of England.^[110] All British music that sought to be national had perforce to find its inspiration herein; and the best that it has produced is perhaps in reality that which, like certain pages of the delightful Purcell, has best preserved its fragrance of tender poetry and rustic grace. But this was a somewhat shallow foundation, a very scanty soil for the art; the form of such music did not lend itself to extensive development; and the musical culture of the country, though fairly widespread, yet always skin-deep, would not have permitted of such development.

And beyond this small province of English songs and ballads—which has remained almost intact until our own days,—we see the dawn, in Pepys' Diary, of the Italian invasion which was to submerge the whole.

 

1. Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich. His mother married Pepys' grandfather (Translator).
2. In the Army Pay Office, under Sir George Downing (Translator).
3. A flute with a mouth-piece, having eight holes, one of which is covered with a thin membrane:—"To Drumbleby's, and there did talk a great deal about pipes, and did buy a recorder, which I do intend to learn to play on, the sound of it being, of all sounds in the world, most pleasing to me."—Pepys' Diary, 2nd April, 1668.
4. 9th February, 1660.
5. 30th January, 1660.
6. 3rd April, 1661.—See also 17th February, 1659, and 20th July, 1664.
7. 9th February, 1662.
8. 22nd August, 1666.
9. 9th November, 1666. cf. 9th December, 1666.—"And without flattery I think it is a very good song."
10. 14th November, 1666.
11. 19th December, 1666.
12. 15th April, 1667.
13. 10th March, 1666.
14. 22nd March, 1666.
15. 3rd April, 1668.
16. 25th December, 1668.
17. 29th March, 1668.
18. 11th January, 1669.
19. 17th February, 1663.
20. 9th March, 1666.
21. Massinger's.
22. 27th February, 1668.
23. 15th June, 1667.
24. 16th March, 1664.
25. 12th February, 1667.
26. 28th August, 1660.
27. 9th September, 1660.
28. 17th May, 1661.
29. 1st October, 1661.
30. The good Pepys was indulgent; his wife had been taking lessons for five years!
31. 30th October, 1666.
32. 25th January, 1659.
33. 15th October, 1665.
34. See above for what Pepys says of his wife.
35. 3rd May, 1663.
36. 24th April, 1663.
37. 28th July, 1664.
38. 27th August, 1664.
39. 9th September, 1664; 22nd April, 1665; 28th September, 1667.
40. 5th May, 1666.
41. By Lawes.
42. 12th July, 1666. See also 19th June, 1666.
43. 30th July, 1666.
44. 23rd September, 1666.
45. For the anniversary of the King's death.
46. 30th January, 1667.
47. Barker was a third servant. She too was a musician.
48. 7th February, 1667.
49. 1st March, 1667.
50. 12th March, 1667.
51. 19th March and 6th May, 1667.
52. 7th May, 1667.
53. 22nd January, 1668.
54. 8th May, 1667.
55. 17th May, 1667.
56. 18th May, 1667.
57. 12th September, 1667.
58. 11th September, 1607.
59. 13th August, 1668.
60. 29th April, 1668. See also 10th May, 1668.
61. 11th May, 1668.
62. 14th May, 1668.
63. 15th May, 1668.
64. 17th May, 1668.
65. 12th April, 1667.
66. 18th December, 1662 and 2nd February, 1667.
67. 1st May, 1663.
68. 10th November, 1666.
69. Scarcely an exception is to be met with. Lord Lauderdale is one, but he is regarded as an eccentric, and possibly wishes to pass for one (28th June, 1666).
70. 23rd April, 1660.
71. 14th December, 1663.
72. 28th June, 1660.
73. 29th May, 1667.
74. 27th July, 1663.
75. 13th June, 1668.
76. 30th April, 1660.
77. 15th September, 1667.
78. And because of a lingering touch of Puritanism. But a perusal of the Diary will show how quickly this feeling evaporated when the ex-Commonwealth man had become the courtier of the Stuarts.
79. 1st February, 1669.
80. 23rd February, 1666.
81. 6th December, 1665.
82. 17th April, 1668.
83. 24th January, 1667.
84. 24th February, 1662.
85. 27th February, 1662.
86. 14th March, 1662.
87. 23rd January, 1664.
88. 8th January, 1663.
89. 16th January, 1660.
90. 15th September, 1667. See also 29th June, 1668.
91. 22nd July, 1664.
92. 16th February, 1667.
93. He regards them with greater favour a little later, when he hears them in the Queen's Chapel (21st March, 1668). See p. 42.
94. He is referring to some Italian songs by Draghi.
95. 13th February, 1667.
96. 18th June, 1666.
97. 1st October, 1667.
98. 10th August, 1664.
99. Pepys sings them constantly (March, April, May, June, November, 1660, 19th December, 1662, 19th November, 1665, etc).
100. 11th and 12th February, 1660. Pepys was acquainted also with the elder Purcell.
101. 21st February, 1660.
102. November, December, 1664. But on this ground the Italians get the better of him later.
103. 12th August, 1667.
104. 30th December, 1667.
105. 28th July, 1666. See also his disdain of bagpipe music. (24th March, 1668).
106. 16th February, 1667. See also 11th February.
107. 7th April, 1667.
108. 21st March, 1668. See also Pepys' opinions of Draghi, whom he met at Lord Brouncker's, with Killigrew, who was striving to establish Italian music in London, and sent to Italy for singers, instrumentalists, and scene-painters (12th February, 1667).
109. We know that Milton, in his famous treatise On Education, speaking of scholars and athletic exercises, suggests that "the interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient rest before meat, may, both with profit and delight, be taken up in recreating and composing their travailed spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of music." He adds that music would be still more appropriate after eating, "to assist and cherish nature in her first concoction, and send their minds back to study in good tune and satisfaction."
110. I am not speaking here of English religious and choral music, which, under the Restoration, produced works of great breadth, and always retained a noble dignity of style, without possessing a truly national character.