Matthew Dubourg, recorded to have been one of the most eminent of the race of English Violinists, was born in the year 1703, and gave very early evidence of his musical propensities. It does not appear from whom he derived his first instructions on the instrument; but, when quite a child, he played his first solo (a sonata of Corelli’s) at one of the concerts of the eccentric Britton, the musical small-coal man. To make his infantine person sufficiently visible on that occasion, he was made to borrow elevation from a joint-stool; and so much was the “tender juvenal” alarmed at the sight of the splendid audience assembled for music and coffee in Britton’s dingy apartment, that at first he was near falling to the ground, from dismay. When about eleven years of age, he was placed under the tuition of Geminiani, who was then recently arrived in this country; and, thus tutored, he was enabled fully to confirm the promise which his first attempts had exhibited. At the age of twelve, he was again before the public—having a benefit concert at what was called the Great Room in James Street. Before he had completed his seventeenth year, he had acquired sufficient power and steadiness to lead at several of the public concerts; the fulness of his tone, and the spirit of his execution, being generally noticed. A few years more sufficed to establish thoroughly his reputation; and, in 1728, he was honoured with the appointment of Master and Composer of the State-Music in Ireland. This situation had been previously offered to his late preceptor, Geminiani, and by him declined on account of its not being tenable, in those jealously restrictive days, by a member of the Romish Communion. As the duties of this employment did not require Dubourg’s constant residence in Ireland, he passed much of his time in England, where he was chosen instructor in music to the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, and other amateurs, whose names might belong to a “Dictionary of Etiquette.” On the death of Festing, in 1732, he was appointed Leader of the King’s Band, which situation, together with his Irish post, he was so far a musical pluralist as to retain until his death, which occurred in London in the year 1767. As a member of society, according to the testimony about him which remains, few men of his profession have rendered themselves more generally respected than he did.
A considerable share of originality appears to have marked the style of this artist, who, if he derived essential aid from the great man that called him pupil, was any thing but his slavish imitator. “Dubourg’s performance on the violin,” says Sir John Hawkins, “was very bold and rapid—greatly different from that of Geminiani, which was tender and pathetic;-and these qualities, it seems, he was able to communicate; for Clegg, his disciple, possessed them in as great perfection as himself.” According to the same authority, the talent of Dubourg won for him many admirers, and among them a Mrs. Martin, who had become, from a Dutch widow, an English wife, and, being possessed of a large fortune, came to reside in London, where, during the winter season, she had frequent Concerts, resorted to by citizens of the first rank, and at times by some of the nobility. A picture of Dubourg, painted when he was a boy, was, it seems, a conspicuous object in Mrs. Martin’s Concert-Room.[56]
As a composer, Dubourg is, or rather was, known by the odes he officially set to music in Ireland, and by a great number of solos and concertos for the violin, which he wrote for his own public performances. Though alleged to have possessed much intrinsic merit, none of these appear hitherto to have been printed; nor is it likely that they will ever now meet with that honour, as the change of fashion in music would hardly admit of their being rescued from “the dreary fuimus of all things human.” For a long time, however, his works (in their aforesaid manuscript state) continued in the possession of one of his pupils; and perhaps they are not yet scattered, but may be at this moment reposing in some dark old chest, undisturbed, save by the nibblings of the worms. In the faint hope of yet bringing some of them to the light, although with no view towards their multiplication, I have had recourse (but without success) to the friendly aid of that oft-times efficacious doubt-cleaver and knot-cracker, known by the name of “Notes and Queries.” As to the odes above referred to, they were ex-officio celebrations of royal virtue, from the now-forgotten hand of Benjamin Victor, the poet-laureate, who has achieved for himself no realization of the classic wish, “victorque virûm volitare per ora.” Of several of these stately effusions, I have the words now before me. They might serve to provoke the smiles of another and a very different laureate, the living Tennyson; but, as a stimulus to music, I can say nothing for them—and can only hope that my progenitor’s attempts, in association with them, may have been worthy of better company.
While in Ireland, Dubourg was honoured with the intimacy of Pope’s Giant, the Briarean Handel; and an anecdote, in which they are both concerned, serves to shew, amusingly enough, that tendency to expatiate discursively on their own peculiar instrument, by which most performers of eminence are distinguished. Handel, in a spirit of charity that harmonized fortunately with his interest, but is not to be suspected of being on that account the less sincere, commenced his career in Ireland by presiding at the performance of the Messiah, for the benefit of the Dublin City-Prison. On a subsequent evening, Dubourg, as leader of the band, having a close to make ad libitum, wandered about so long, in a fit of abstract modulation, as to seem a little uncertain about that indispensable postulate, the original key. At length, however, he accomplished a safe arrival at the shake which was to terminate this long close, when Handel, to the great delight of the audience, cried out, loud enough to be heard in the remotest parts of the theatre—“Welcome home, welcome home, Mr. Dubourg!” One of the evidences of Handel’s friendship for him, is to be found among his testamentary arrangements, which included a bequest of £100 in his favour.
During his location in Ireland, Dubourg was also visited (in 1761) by his master Geminiani, towards whom he always evinced the utmost regard, and who died in his house, at the great age of 96.
Garrett, Earl of Mornington, noted for his fine musical taste, no less than for his lineal antecedence to the Duke of Wellington, took the interest of a patron in this modest man of art, of whose ability he shewed a precocious discernment, in his very infancy—as the following little tale will explain.
The father of the Earl played well, as an amateur, on the violin, so as to give frequent delight to his child, whilst in the nurse’s arms, and long before he could speak. Dubourg, happening on some occasion to be at the family seat, was not permitted by the child to take the violin from his father nor was the opposition overcome till his little hands were held. After having heard Dubourg, however, the case was altered, and there was then much more difficulty in persuading him to let Dubourg give the instrument back to his father; nor would the infant ever afterwards permit the father to play, whilst Dubourg was in the house.
It appears that the name of this artist is the first on record in connection with the performance of a violin concerto on the stage of an English theatre. At the oratorios given by Handel at Covent Garden in 1741 and 42, Dubourg occupied the ears and eyes of the public, in that way, for many successive nights. Several other performers took the hint, and started upon the same footing soon after[57]. This sort of exhibition, after some years, seems to have grown too common, to satisfy the public appetency; wherefore a Signor Rossignol, in 1776, undertook to perform after a mode which we should now style à la Paganini: indeed he seemed to go beyond the modern “miracle of man,” for he advertised “a concerto on the violin, without strings.” Whether the joke turned on the plural number, in particular, or (as the lawyers say) how otherwise, it is now impossible to ascertain.
Dubourg—peace to his gentle memory!—was interred in the church-yard of Paddington, where his calling in life, and his summons to death, were denoted in the following gracefully reflective epitaph:—
“Though, sweet as Orpheus, thou couldst bring Soft pleadings from the trembling string, Uncharmed the King of Terror stands, Nor owns the magic of thy hands.”