was expected to sing "his part" in chapel as a matter of course. We find Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth to have all been capable players on lute or virginals. We find that it was the merest qualification that an Elizabethan bishop should be able to sing well; and that young University gentlemen of birth thought it nothing out of the way to learn all the mysteries of both prick-song (a written part) and descant (an extempore counterpoint), and to solace their weary hours by singing "in parts."
Immediately after Shakespeare's time, we find a courtier of James I., and the ill-fated Prince Charles himself, both enthusiasts in both church and chamber music; and lastly, two years after the Regicide, we find the University of Oxford to have been a perfect hotbed of musical cultivation. Men who afterwards became Bishops, Archdeacons, Prebendaries, besides sixteen Fellows of Colleges, and sundry gentlemen of family, were not ashamed to practise chamber music and singing to an extent which really has no parallel whatever nowadays.
There is plenty of evidence, though more indirect in kind, that the lower classes were as enthusiastic about music as the higher. A large number of passages in contemporary authors shows clearly that
