Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/118

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NOTES AND QUERIES. or* s. n. AUG. e, t

which was incorrectly given by Hawkins. In both particulars he was followed, to a fault, by Busby, The dates of Hawkins and Burney, however, are worthless. In 1862 Sir F. Madden noted on the fly-leaf of the MS. (No. 978 of the Harleian Collection in the British Museum) that the portion containing the rota was written about the year 1240. But it was Chappell who first assigned the MS. to its author, and his authority has not been questioned. He says that it was written not later than 1236, probably in 1226, by a monk, John of Fornsete, at the abbey of Reading. In his ' Popular Music ' he gives a copy in the original colours, of which copy Mr. Crowest remarks that the stave lines should be red, not black. It may be added that Chappell is apparently the author of the arrangement of the canon as a song in Macfarren's ' Old Eng- lish Ditties ' (vol. i.). The reasons which assign the rota to the Reading monk are built not on the music and notation only, but on some punning allusions in another portion of the MS. Additional remarks are adaed by Mr. Rockstro in the 'Dictionary' of Sir George Grove, by Mr. Crowest in his 'Story of British Music,' by Sir F. Ouseley, and others. Each of the three named has added a solution of the canon. The melody is probably of unknown antiquity, and the words form a Northumbrian round in praise of the cuckoo. The notation is similar to that employed by Walter Odington, whose remarkable work ' De Speculatione Musicse,' written in the thirteenth century, and fiercely and rather foolishly disputed by some continental writers in the nineteenth, is in the Library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.

The one difficulty lies in the making of the canon ; for, whereas some bars would have been rigorously condemned as bad in the thirteenth century, they would have been fully accepted in the fifteenth. It was pro- bably this fact that decided the date given by Hawkins. Mr. Rockstro, in Grove's 'Dic- tionary,' bridges these apparent contradic- tions. The freedom of the whole composition makes it easy to, accept his suggestion that the monk of Reading was more intent on making his joyful canon and adding its ground bass, for his own pleasure and that of the "quatuor socii " who shared it, than on any points of strict accuracy as then understood.

A Latin hymn is written beneath the Eng- lish words. This for use, probably, when the superiors were about was after the fashion of an early archbishop (Thomas of York), who liked the secular tunes, and wrote re- ligious versions of the words to make the tunes seemly for the clergy.

An old (French?) proverb epitomized the singing of the leading countries of Europe : "Galli cantant, Angli jubilant, Hispani plangunt, Germani ululant, Itali caprizant." This is funny, and rather comforting ; in view of the Reading rota it is pleasant to think that it might also have been true.

GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

The original MS. is in a volume from Read- ing Abbey, now Harleian MS. 978. It is in the handwriting of Johannes de Fornsete, who kept the cartulary, now Cotton MS. Vespasian e V. Whether the music of this famous piece is all in his writing is a point which has been much debated. The directions for singing the tune as a four-voiced canon, and the bass, are placed separately, and might have been added later ; but they seem all in the same handwriting. No piece of music has caused so much discussion as this has, and will probably long continue to do. Its date is about 1226 ; Johannes de Fornsete apparently died on St. Wulstan's Day, 1239. The composition has been more than once ascribed to Walter Odington (Walter of Evesham). This theory is impossible, as Oding- ton lived in the fourteenth century, and was at Merton College about 1330. The mistake arose strangely. In Naumann's ' Illustrated History of Music' (a very poor book and quite untrustworthy) there is a reference to the discovery of "Sumer is icumen in," which Naumann wrongly supposed was first brought to light by Hawkins. Two paragraphs pre- viously Naumann had spoken of Odington ; and this has been enough to connect Od ing- ton's name with the piece. Nagel, Adler, and Klanwell have all discussed "Sumer is icumen in " at great length. H. DAVEY.

TOBACCO IN ENGLAND (9 th S. ii. 86). The Customs rules were altered a few years ago for the express purpose of allowing tobacco to be grown in England. D.

' THREE JOVIAL HUNTSMEN ' (9 th S. ii. 88). Caldecott never wrote his words, but always took existing ballads. He was not always sufficiently careful in the selection of his version, as witness his ' Four-and-twenty Blackbirds.' T. J. H.

COINS (9 th S. i. 268, 394). I have been care- fully comparing the five Irish farthings of Charles I. in my possession, all of which are in good condition. Of these three are round and two oval in shape, while all have been struck from different dies, as may be gathered from the following varying descriptions. I