SERENADES AND 'MUSIC'
105
H. 4. B. 24, 10.
| 1 Drawer. | Why then, cover, and set them down: and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tear- sheet would fain have some music. (After supper, in a cooler room.) |
Id. l. 227.
| Page. | The music is come, sir. |
| Falstaff. | Let them play. Play, sirs. |
Id. l. 380.
| Fal. | Pay the musicians, sirrah. |
The term 'Sneak's noise' is most interesting. 'Noise' means a company of musicians, and Mr Sneak was the gentleman who gave his name to the particular band of instrumentalists who favoured the Boar's Head.
Milton uses the word, in this sense, in the poem 'At a Solemn Music,' where the 'saintly shout' of the seraphic choir, with 'loud uplifted angel-trumpets,' 'immortal harps of golden wires,' and the singing of psalms and hymns, are collectively called 'that melodious noise.' Also in his Hymn on the Nativity, verse ix., he has 'stringèd noise'—i.e., band of stringed instruments. The Prayer-book Version (Great Bible) of the Psalms, which was made in 1540, has the word
