Extract from Chapter x. of “The Worthies of England.”

MUSIC is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune. Such the extensiveness thereof, that it stoopeth as low as brute beasts, yet mounteth as high as angels; for horses will do more for a whistle than for a whip, and by hearing their bells jingle away their weariness. The angels in heaven employ themselves in music, and one ingeniously expresseth it to this effect:—

  And although we know not the notes of their music, we know what their ditty is, namely, Hallelujah.

  Such as cavil at music, because Jubal, a descendant from wicked Cain, was the first founder thereof, may as well be content to lie out of doors, and refuse all cover to shelter them, because Jabal, of the same extraction, being his own brother, first invented to dwell in tents.

  I confess there is a company of pretenders to music, who are commonly called crowders, and that justly too, because they crowd into the company of gentlemen both unsent for, and unwelcome; but these are no more a disgrace to the true professors of that faculty than monkeys are a disparagement to mankind.

  Now right ancient is the use of music in England, especially if it be true what I read in a worthy Father; and I know not which more to admire, either that so memorable a passage should escape Master Camden’s, or that it should fall under my observation:—

  Where this musical place should be in Britain, I could never find, yet have been informed that Dr. Miles Smith, bishop of Hereford, found something tending that way, by the help of an active fancy, in Herefordshire. But, waiving this natural, the antiquity of artificial music in this island is proved by the practice of the bards, thereby communicating religion, learning, and civility, to the Britons.

  Right glad I am, that when music was lately shut out of our churches, on what default of hers I dare not to inquire, it hath since been harbored and welcomed in the halls, parlors, and chambers of the primest persons of this nation. Sure I am, it could not enter into my head to surmise that music would have been so much discouraged by such who turned our kingdom into a commonwealth, seeing they prided themselves in the arms thereof, an impaled harp being moiety of the same. When it was asked, “What made a good musician?” one answered, a good voice; another, that it was skill. But he said the truth who said it was encouragement. It was therefore my constant wish, that, seeing most of our musicians were men of maturity, and arrived at their full age and skill, before these distracted times began, and seeing what the historian wrote in another sense is true here in our acceptation and application thereof, Res est unius seculi populus virorum; I say, I did constantly wish that there might have been some seminary of youth set up, to be bred in the faculty of music, to supply succession when this set of masters in that science had served their generation.

  Yet although I missed of what I did then desire, yet, thanks be to God, I have lived to see music come into request, since our nation came into right tune, and begin to flourish in our churches and elsewhere; so that now no fear but we shall have a new generation skillful in that science, to succeed such whose age shall call upon them to pay their debt to nature.

  If any who dislike music in churches object to it as useless, if not hurtful, in Divine service, let them hear what both a learned and able divine allegeth in defense thereof: “So that although we lay altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort, and carried from the ear to the spiritual faculties of the soul, it is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled; apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager; sovereign against melancholy and despair, forcible to draw forth tears of devotion, if the mind be such as can yield them, able both to move and moderate all affections.”

  In recounting up of musicians, I have only insisted on such who made it their profession; and either have written books of that faculty, and have attained to such an eminence therein as is generally acknowledged. Otherwise the work would be endless, to recount all up who took it as a quality of accomplishment; amongst whom King Henry VIII. must be accounted, who, as Erasmus testifies to his knowledge, did not only sing his part sure, but also composed services for his chapel, of four, five, and six parts, though as good a professor as he was, he was a great destroyer of music in this land; surely not intentionally, but accidentally, when he suppressed so many choirs at the Dissolution.