Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ramsay, Robert (fl.1630)
RAMSAY or RAMSEY, ROBERT (fl. 1630), musician, began the study of music in 1609, and graduated Mus. Bac. at Cambridge in 1616. Subsequently he was master of the choristers at Trinity College, and a payment to him of 5l. is recorded on 12 Jan. 1631–2. In the Tudway collection (Harl. MSS.) he is described as organist of Trinity College about 1639; Tudway inaccurately calls him John Ramsey. Of Ramsey's extant compositions there are anthems in his autograph at the Euing Library, Anderson's College, Glasgow, and eleven others in the part-books at St. Peter's College, Cambridge. Along with the latter appear a complete service (with a Litany), a Latin Litany, and two settings of the Latin Te Deum and Jubilate. Both Litanies were published in Jebb's ‘Choral Responses and Litanies of the English Church.’ This music was doubtless composed for Cosin, who in 1634 became master of Peterhouse. Ramsey's service is also in the old part-books at Ely, and was copied by Tudway, together with a canon-anthem by Ramsey. A Te Deum by him is preserved in a fine part-book (Addit. MS. 29289).
Herrick's translation of Horace's ‘Donec-gratus,’ which was undertaken by the poet in 1627 while he was at Cambridge, was set by Ramsey, but the music is not known to be extant. A volume of songs and dialogues (in the British Museum Addit. MS. 11608), transcribed during the Commonwealth, contains two compositions by him, an elegy ‘What teares, deere Prince,’ and ‘In guiltie night,’ the dialogue (Saul, Samuel, and the Witch of Endor) subsequently set by Purcell. A madrigal is in Additional MSS. 17786–17791. In a volume of poetry, apparently written at Cambridge about 1630 (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 15227), Ramsey's signature is appended to the well-known ‘Go, perjured man,’ which was afterwards made famous by Dr. Blow's setting; but Herrick published the poem as his own. An imperfect set of part-books in the Bodleian Library (MS. Mus. f. 20–24) contain several others of Ramsey's works, among them three elegies said to be taken from ‘Dialogues of sorrow for the death of the late Prince Henrie, 1615.’ This work, if published, has been lost. Another set in the same library (ib. f. 25–8) has preserved Ramsey's ‘comenchement song,’ a motett, ‘Inclina Domine,’ for eight voices. One anthem is included in James Clifford's word-book of anthems used at St. Paul's after the Restoration.
[Abdy Williams's Degrees in Music, p. 127; Ecclesiologist for 1859, pp. 244–5; Cat. of Euing Library, p. 158; Dickson's Cat. Ely MSS. p. 37; Herrick's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 50, 72; Tudway in Harl. MSS. 7337, 7340; information from Mr. G. E. P. Arkwright; Conclusion-books of Trinity College, kindly communicated by the Rev. R. Sinker.]