CHAPTER XCIV.
THE AUTHOR DISCOVERS CERTAIN MUSICAL CORRESPONDENCIES TO THESE HIS LUCUBRATIONS.
And music mild I learn'd that tells
Tune, time and measure of the song.
HIGGINS.
A Tattle-de-Moy, reader, was “a new-fashioned thing” in the year of our Lord 1676, “much like a Seraband, only it had in it more of conceit and of humour: and it might supply the place of a seraband at the end of a suit of lessons at any time.” That simple-hearted, and therefore happy old man, Thomas Mace, invented it himself, because he would be a little modish, he said; and he called it a Tattle-de-Moy, “because it tattles, and seems to speak those very words or syllables. Its humour,” said he, “is toyish, jocund, harmless and pleasant; and as if it were one playing with, or tossing, a ball up and down: yet it seems to have a very solemn countenance, and like unto one of a sober and innocent condition, or disposition; not antic, apish, or wild.”
If indeed the gift of prophecy were imparted, or imputed to musicians as it has sometimes been to poets, Thomas Mace might be thought to have unwittingly foreshewn certain characteristics of the unique opus which is now before the reader: so nearly has he described them when instructing his pupils how to give right and proper names to all lessons they might meet with.
“There are, first, Preludes; then, secondly, Fancies and Voluntaries; thirdly, Pavines; fourthly, Allmaines; fifthly, Airs; sixthly, Galliards; seventhly, Corantoes; eighthly, Serabands; ninthly, Tattle-de-Moys; tenthly, Chichonas; eleventhly, Toys or Jiggs; twelfthly, Common Tunes; and, lastly, Grounds, with Divisions upon them.
“The Prelude is commonly a piece of confused, wild, shapeless kind of intricate play, (as most use it) in which no perfect form, shape, or uniformity can be perceived; but a random business, pottering and grooping, up and down, from one stop, or key, to another; and generally so performed, to make trial, whether the instrument be well in tune or not; by which doing after they have completed their tuning, they will (if they be masters) fall into some kind of voluntary or fancical play more intelligible; which (if he be a master able) is a way whereby he may more fully and plainly shew his excellency and ability, than by any other kind of undertaking; and has an unlimited and unbounded liberty, in which he may make use of the forms and shapes of all the rest.”
Here the quasi-prophetic lutanist may seem to have described the ante-initial chapters of this opus, and those other pieces which precede the beginning thereof, and resemble
A lively prelude, fashioning the way
In which the voice shall wander.1
For though a censorious reader will pick out such expressions only as may be applied with a malign meaning; yet in what he may consider confused and shapeless, and call pottering and grooping, the competent observer will recognize the hand of a master, trying his instrument and tuning it; and then passing into a voluntary whereby he approves his skill, and foreshows the spirit of his performance.
1 KEATS.
The Pavines, Master Mace tells us, are lessons of two, three, or four strains, very grave and solemn; full of art and profundity, but seldom used in “these our light days,” as in many respects he might well call the days of King Charles the Second. Here he characterises our graver Chapters, which are in strains so deep, so soothing, and so solemn withal, that if such a Pavine had been played in the hall of the palace at Aix, when King Charlemagne asked the Archbishop to dance, the invitation could not have been deemed indecorous.
Allmaines are very airy and lively, and generally in common or plain time. Airs differ from them only in being usually shorter, and of a more rapid and nimble performance.—With many of these have the readers of the Doctor been amused.
Galliards, being grave and sober, are performed in a slow and large triple time. Some of the chapters relating to the history of Doncaster come under this description: especially that concerning its Corporation, which may be called a Galliard par excellence.
The Corantoes are of a shorter cut, and of a quicker triple time, full of sprightfulness and vigour, lively, brisk and cheerful: the Serabands of the shortest triple time, and more toyish and light than the Corantoes. There are of both kinds in these volumes, and skilfully are they alternated with the Pavines:
Now the musician
Hovers with nimble stick o'er squeaking crowd
Tickling the dried guts of a mewing cat—2
and anon a strain is heard—
Not wanting power to mitigate and swage,
With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase
Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain
From mortal or immortal minds.3
And there are Chichonas also, which consist of a few conceited notes in a grave kind of humour; these are the Chapters which the Honourable Fastidious Feeblewit condemns as being in bad taste, and which Lord Makemotion Ganderman pronounces poor stuff; but at which Yorickson smiles, Macswift's countenance brightens, and Fitzrabelais laughs outright.
2 MARSTON.
3 MILTON.
No prophecies can be expected to go upon all fours; and nothing in this opus corresponds to Master Mace's Toys, or Jiggs, which are “light, squibbish things, only fit for fantastical and easy light-headed people;” nor to his common Tunes.
Last in his enumeration is the Ground: this, he says, is “a set number of slow notes, very grave and stately; which, after it is expressed once or twice very plainly, then he that hath good brains and a good hand, undertakes to play several divisions upon it, time after time, till he has shewed his bravery, both of invention and execution.” My worthy friend Dr. Dense can need no hint to make him perceive how happily this applies to the ground of the present work, and the manner of treating it. And if Mr. Dulman disputes the application, it can only be because he is determined not to see it. All his family are remarkable for obstinacy.
And here taking leave for awhile of the good old lutanist, I invite the serious and the curious to another Pavine among the stars.
