Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/248

Lawes an entry is found showing that in June 1649 Lawes received the sum of 1l. 10s. for a month's teaching of Lady Dering, to whom he dedicated, in 1656, his second book of 'Ayres' (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 162). In the preface to this book he refers to his having 'lost his fortunes with his master (of ever blessed memory).' In 1666 he contributed, with Captain H. Cooke, Dr. Colman, and G. Hudson, the music for D'Avenant's 'First Day's entertainment at Rutland House;' and in 1668 his third book of 'Ayres' appeared, with a dedication to Lord Cofraine, the aptness of whose son, Henry Hare, a pupil of the composer, is alluded to in the preface. At the Restoration Lawes was reappointed to his offices in the Chapel Royal and the king's band; his name appears as clerk of the cheque in the list of the chapel at the time of the coronation, for which he wrote an anthem, 'Zadok the Priest.' Two years afterwards, on 21 Oct. 1662, he died, and was buried on the 25th in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

In the various books of airs published by Playford, Lawes's compositions are of frequent occurrence, and the composer appeared on one occasion at least as a poet, in a set of commendatory verses prefixed to Dr. J. Wilson's 'Psalterium Carolinum,' 1657. He pays Wilson the same compliment that he himself had been paid by Milton twelve years before. 'Thou taught'st,' he tells Wilson, 'our language, first, to speak in Tone, Gav'st the right accent and proportion.' But Lawes himself will always be remembered as the first Englishman who studied and practised with success the proper accentuation of words, and who made the sense of the poem of paramount importance. This may have been either the cause or the result of his intimacy with so many of the best poets of his day. In the first editions of the poems of Hernck, Waller, W. Cartwright, T. Carew, Lovelace, and others, it is mentioned that Lawes set some of their words to music, and their admiration of his music is not gain-said by the failure of later writers like Burney to appreciate his compositions. His style was a reflection of the revolution in music which took place in Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century ; it is quite true, as Hawkins says, that his airs differed very widely from the flowing melodies of Carissimi and Cesti, but this does not prove the composer to have been free from the influences or the earlier Italian writers, such as Monteverde. To modern ears his compositions seem a good deal less antiquated and conventional than many later works, the melodies of which are essentially symmetrical.

Besides the collections mentioned above, songs by Lawes are contained in manuscript collections — Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., Nos- 14399, 29386, 29396, 81441, 81462; Eg. 2013, and others. Add. 32343 contains a political song, 'Farewell to ye parlyamint,' in the composer's writing, as well as the words and disposition of parts for an anthem, 'Hearken, unto my voice.' Another set of anthem words, '0 sing unto the Lord,' is in Eg. 2603. The music of neither of these anthems is extant. Clifford's 'Divine Anthems,' 1664, include the words of an anthem by Lawes, 'My song shall be,' the music of which is in the library of Christ Church, Oxford. Clifford also gives the words of ten other anthems by Lawes, mostly taken from Sandys, and 'Choice Psalms.' Hullah's 'Part Music' contains an anthem, 'Lord, I will sing.'

The portrait referred to in Warton's 'Milton' is in the bishop's palace at Salisbury ; it was left as an heirloom by Bishop Barrington in 1791 ; it is painted on panel, and bears the inscription, 'H. Lawes. Ætat. suae 26, 1622.' Another portrait is at Salisbury, in the possession of A. R. Maiden, esq. It formerly belonged to William Lisle Bowles [q.v.] ; the name of the painter is apparently Charles Hambro. Besides these pictures, and the engraving by Faithorne in the 'Ayres' of 1658, two portraits were exhibited at South Kensington in 1866, one from the Music School at Oxford, and the other the property of the Rev. Richard Okes, D.D., provost of King's College, Cambridge. The latter has since become the property of Professor Stanford, Mus.D., but it does not resemble the other likenesses of Henry Lawes, and probably represents his brother.

 LAWES, WILLIAM (d. 1645), musical composer, was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar-choral of Salisbury, and elder brother of 