CHAPTER XCIV.
THE AUTHOR DISCOVERS CERTAIN MUSICAL CORRESPONDENCIES TO THESE HIS LUCUBRATIONS.
And music mild I learn'd that tells
Tune, time and measure of the song.
HIGGINS.
A Tattle-de-Moy, reader, was “a new-fashioned thing” in the year of our Lord 1676, “much like a Seraband, only it had in it more of conceit and of humour: and it might supply the place of a seraband at the end of a suit of lessons at any time.” That simple-hearted, and therefore happy old man, Thomas Mace, invented it himself, because he would be a little modish, he said; and he called it a Tattle-de-Moy, “because it tattles, and seems to speak those very words or syllables. Its humour,” said he, “is toyish, jocund, harmless and pleasant; and as if it were one playing with, or tossing, a ball up and down: yet it seems to have a very solemn countenance, and like unto one of a sober and innocent condition, or disposition; not antic, apish, or wild.”
If indeed the gift of prophecy were imparted, or imputed to musicians as it has sometimes been to poets, Thomas Mace might be thought to have unwittingly foreshewn certain characteristics of the unique opus which is now before the reader: so nearly has he described them when instructing his pupils how to give right and proper names to all lessons they might meet with.
“There are, first, Preludes; then, secondly, Fancies and Voluntaries; thirdly, Pavines; fourthly, Allmaines; fifthly, Airs; sixthly, Galliards; seventhly, Corantoes; eighthly, Serabands; ninthly, Tattle-de-Moys; tenthly, Chichonas; eleventhly, Toys or Jiggs; twelfthly, Common Tunes; and, lastly, Grounds, with Divisions upon them.
“The Prelude is commonly a piece of confused, wild, shapeless kind of intricate play, (as most use it) in which no perfect form, shape, or uniformity can be perceived; but a random business, pottering and grooping, up and down, from one stop, or key, to another; and generally so performed, to make trial, whether the instrument be well in tune or not; by which doing after they have completed their tuning, they will (if they be masters) fall into some kind of voluntary or fancical play more intelligible; which (if he be a master able) is a way whereby he may more fully and plainly shew his excellency and ability, than by any other kind of undertaking; and has an unlimited and unbounded liberty, in which he may make use of the forms and shapes of all the rest.”
Here the quasi-prophetic lutanist may seem to have described the ante-initial chapters of this opus, and those other pieces which precede the beginning thereof, and resemble