Falstaff. My lord.... For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems.
H. 4. B. II, i, 88.
Hostess. Thou didst swear to me ... upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor.
Hen. 4. A. II, iv, 137. Falstaff laments the degeneracy of the times.
Fal. There live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat, and grows old; God help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything.
This last sentence connects curiously with Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards, who were noted for their psalm singing, which indeed gave them the name. These Flemish Protestants, who had fled from the persecutions in their own country, were mostly woollen manufacturers, and were distinguished for their love of Psalmody, throughout the western counties, where they settled. Hence the allusion to 'weavers' and 'Psalms.' But according to the Epilogue of Hen. 4. B., 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.'
Falstaff knew well what a Ballad was too—as the following shews:—
Hen. 4. A. II, ii, 43.
Fal. (to Hal.). Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison.
Two other worthy knights claim our attention in the next quotation, which contains many interesting allusions. Inter alia; Sir Toby gives Feste sixpence to sing a song; Sir Andrew follows it up with a 'testril.' The Clown then sings them 'O mistress mine.' [For the original music see Prof. Bridge's 'Shakespeare Songs,' Novello, a collection which every reader of Shakespeare ought to have. Price 2s. 6d.] Then, at Sir Toby's suggestion, they all three sing a catch, or, in his own words, 'draw three souls out of one weaver,' an allusion to the three vocal parts which are evolved from the one melody of the catch, as well as a sly reference to 'weavers' singing catches. (See [Introduction].) They sing 'Thou knave,' for which see the [Appendix]. It is not a good catch, but sounds humorous if done smartly, and perhaps its very roughness suits the circumstances. Next, after Maria's entrance, Toby either quotes the titles, or sings odd lines of four old songs [[Appendix]]; and when Malvolio comes in, furious with the noise they are making in the middle of the night, he applies precisely those epithets to their proceedings that our histories lead us to expect—e.g., 'gabbling like tinkers,' 'alehouse,' squeaking out your 'cozier's catches' ['cozier' is 'cobbler']. Sir Toby's puns on 'keep time' in ll. 94 and 115 ought not to be missed. To 'keep time' is almost the only virtue a catch singer must have.