Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/293

 Rutland House, by declamations and musick, after the manner of the ancients.' This was merely an argument in dialogue form as to the fitness of dramatic representations. It was performed on 21 May 1656, the audience being admitted at five shillings a head. According to a contemporary account (State Papers, Dom. 1655-6, cxxviii. No. 108), the ' music was in a covered place and concerted,' the entertainment lasted an hour and a half, and though four hundred people were expected only one hundred and fifty came. It was followed by the same author's 'Siege of Rhodes made a Representation by the Art of Prospective in Scenes, and the Story sung in Recitative Musick.' In the preface to this work which was really the first English opera Davenant states that 'the musick was compos'd, and both the vocal and instrumental is exercis'd, by the most transcendent of England in that art, and perhaps not unequal to the best masters abroad; but being recitative, and therefore unpractis'd here; though of great reputation amongst other nations, the very attempt of it is an obligation to our own.' The work was in five entries or acts, the 1st and 5th set by Henry Lawes, the 2nd and 3rd by Captain Cooke, and the 4th by Matthew Locke, while the instrumental music between the acts was the work of Charles Coleman and George Hudson. At the Restoration, Coleman and his younger son Charles were granted the office of 'viol in ordinary, amongst the lutes and voices in the king's private music,' with a fee of 40l. a year and 20l. for strings. He also seems to have been in receipt of the usual yearly allowance of 16l. 2s. 6d. for livery. In November 1662, on the death of Henry Lawes, he was appointed composer to the king, with a salary of 40l. per annum, and on 28 Oct. of the same year he became an assistant of the newly revived company of musicians.

On 31 Jan. 1663 it was ordered by the same company that Locke, Christopher Gibbons, and W. Gregory should each of them pay 10l. to the company or show cause to the contrary; this payment was probably for licenses to practise as musicians, the whole aim of the corporation being to create a professional monopoly. Coleman died at his house in Churchyard Alley, Fetter Lane, in July 1664. His will, dated in the same month, was proved on 16 July by his wife Grace; in it he mentions his three younger children, Charles, Reginah, and Grace, the first of whom was one of the musicians in ordinary in 1694, though his name is absent in the lists for 1700. Songs and instrumental pieces by Charles Coleman are to be found in many of the contemporary collections, notably in the various editions of 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues,' and 'Courtly Masquing Ayres.' Manuscript compositions by him are preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the British Museum, Lambeth Palace, Christ Church, Oxford and especially the Music School collection, where there are many fancies and other instrumental pieces by him. Coleman contributed the definitions of musical terms to E. Phillips's 'New World of Words' (1658).  COLEMAN, EDWARD (d. 1669), musician, a son of Dr. Charles Coleman [q. v.], was a celebrated teacher of the viol, lute, and singing. He was the original composer of Shirley's fine lines in the 'Contention of Ajax and Ulysses,' beginning 'The glories of our blood and state,' on its production in 1653. In 1656 he sang the part of Alphonso in Davenant's ' Siege of Rhodes,' his wife Catherine being the lanthe, and Captain Cooke [q. v.] Solyman. At the Restoration, Coleman became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and on 21 Jan. 1662 he took John Lanier's place in the royal band, as 'a musician for the lute and voice,' with a salary of 40l. per annum, and a yearly allowance of 16l. 2s. 6d. for livery. Frequent glimpses of Coleman and his wife who was the first woman who appeared on the stage in England are met with in Pepys's Diary. On 31 Oct. 1665, at Pepys's house, ' Anon comes Mrs. Coleman and her husband, and she sang very finely; though her voice is decayed as to strength, but mighty sweet though soft, and a pleasant, jolly woman, and in mighty good humour. . . . But for singing, among other things, we got Mrs. Coleman to sing part of the opera, though she would not own she did get any of it without books in order to the stage; but above all her counterfeiting of Captain Cooke's part, in his reproaching his man with cowardice "Base slave, &c." she do it most excellently.' On 6 Dec. 1665 Pepys relates how he went with his wife and Mercer to Mrs. Pierce's, where they met the