Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/347

. MAY 6, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

341

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 71.

N )TES : Oliver Cromwell and Music, 341 Withy combe Jhurch struck by Lightning, 342 Remarks on .<Esop, 344 -" Bagatelle," 345 " Snacks " ' Tartufe' Sir Walter Jcott Epitaph at Drogheda, 346.

QUERIES: The Fleetwood Cabinet Rowland Wetherald -"Guldize" Wind Indicator at Peckbam Browne-Mill -'The Spectator': " Bulfinch " " Conservons le chaos" -Lauder, 347 Djachwi Double Dedications George Bruce ' Disobedient Dick 'William Wall The London Electrical Dispensary" Like a toad in a mud wall with- out money" Civil War in Scotland "Bouze" and " Bouzy " Ramus Family, 348 " Wigs on the green" The Golden Gate Windsor Chairs" Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe "Sarah Curran : Robert Emmet, 349.

REPLIES : St. Jordan, 349 Theatre Tickets and Passes, 350 "An ice "Room-panelling, 351 Chinese Punishments Lord Lytton and Ibn Ezra" No great shakes "Waller "The Old Frenchman," 352 Horace Walpole and his Editors, 353 Barclay's ' Argenis ' ' The Romano-British City of Silchester,' 354" World without end" Bingham Armorial, 355 Mackenzie Name and Composer of Song- Royal Roads to Knowledge Aspidistra Massgna, 356 " Stook "Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester Arlington, 357 Conjugal Rights or Hites Scrimanski Cogan : Barry : Roche, 358.

NOTES ON BOOKS:- Johnston's 'History of the Coloniza- tion of Africa by Alien Races 'Hume Brown's ' History of Scotland ' Hazlitt's ' Supplement to the Coinage of the European Continent 'Reviews and Magazines.

i Notices to Correspondents.

OLIVER CROMWELL AND MUSIC. i Two mistakes are commonly made concern- ing the social history of the interregnum. In the popular mind every Puritan is exactly like jBvery other ; and everything, good or bad, on
 * he Puritan side of the contention, is usually

ittributed to Oliver Cromwell. At nearly ivery cathedral in England visitors are told )f the havoc wrought by "Cromwell'ssoldiers"; )ut the mischief was mainly done at the out- )reak of the war, before Cromwell was so ouch as a colonel. Cromwell favoured tole- ation of all Protestant sects, yet four years ince a communication to 4 N. & Q.' charged Jromwell with passing a persecuting Act /hich was the work of his Presbyterian pppnents. Because the Act was passed uring the war, Cromwell gets the credit of p now, though he opposed it. Again, such 'uritans as the Earls of Warwick, North- mberland, and Essex, or as Sir Harry Vane, romwell, and Milton, were very different ten from such Puritans as George Fox and ames Naylor, or even the rank and file of romwell's Ironsides. There were different agrees of Puritanism, just as there were ifferent degrees of Royal ism and Anglican-

ism. Jeremy Taylor was nearer to Richard Baxter than to Laud. In no way have the Puritans been more slandered than in the common view of their relation to literature and the arts, especially music. Even Mac- aulay wrote as if the whole body thought it sin to "touch [play] the virginals." The Puritans did, indeed, forbid all amusement on the Sabbath, re-enact Queen Elizabeth's statute against the disreputable street min- strels, and object to the use of the organ in worship ; but they did not object to every- thing pleasant. The organ was in those days used not in the same way as now, either in England or abroad. Thomas Mace, of Cam- bridge, who was in York during the siege (1644), says in 'Mustek's Monument' that in York Minster the congregation sang a Psalm-tune accompanied by the organ, a custom which he nad heard of nowhere else. That custom is now universal ; but the ordinary use of the organ in the seven- teenth century was to add brilliancy to the vocal music sung by the choir, and all possible embellishment by florid runs seems to have been employed. The Puritans ob- jected to that style of sacred music ; and so should we object if it were heard now. The result was a blind rage which led to the de- struction of several cathedral organs, and to a law that all organs should be removed from churches ; and as this is popular knowledge, it has gradually developed a legend that the Puritans objected to all music, and that the art was prohibited during the Common- wealth. Several musical historians have stated or implied so much, but it is an absolute and unqualified falsehood. The

Eractice of secular music was in no way inter- bred with ; and not only Cromwell, Milton, Whitelocke, but also Hutchinson and others of the leading Puritans, were among the best amateurs of the day. And they were not exceptions. Milton, 'in ' Areopagitica'(1644), writing in Puritan London, says that lutes, violins, and guitars were to be found "in every house." Only the Quakers objected to music in itself ; and the art was flourishing during the Commonwealth, when more music was published than during the whole reign of Charles I.

The tercentenary of Cromwell's birth last month is a favourable opportunity for point- ing out not only that Cromwell and his followers were not responsible for everything done between 1642 and 1660, but also that though the Puritans objected to the use of artistic music for one purpose, they did not object to it at all times and places. We can- not hope to touch popular belief; but his-