Page:Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age (1896).djvu/17

Rh and Sonnets." The composer must have taken to heart the precepts set down by Sir Edward Dyer in "My mind to me a kingdom is" (printed in "Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs"), for his dedicatory epistle and his address to the reader show him to have been a man who had laid up a copious store of genial wisdom, upon which he could draw freely in the closing days of an honourable life. His earlier works had been well received, and in addressing "all true lovers of music" he knew that he could rely upon their cordial sympathy. "I am much encouraged," he writes," to commend to you these my last labours, for mine ultimum vale"; and then follows a piece of friendly counsel: "Only this I desire, that you will be as careful to hear them well expressed, as I have been both in the composing and correcting of them. Otherwise the best song that ever was made will seem harsh and unpleasant; for that the well expressing of them either by voices or instrument is the life of our labours, which is seldom or never well performed at the first singing of playing. Quaint old-fashioned moral verses were much affected by Byrd, particularly in his latest song-book. He inculcates precepts of homely piety in a cheerful spirit, with occasional touches of naïve epigrammatic terseness. Many men strongly object to be bullied from a pulpit, but he must be a