Old Country Life

by S. Baring-Gould

Will pull most just and true

In serving the Lord.

God grant that all of we,

Like angels may agree,

Singing in harmony,

And sweet concord."

There was a great effort made at the time of the Commonwealth to put down all kinds of music. In 1648 the Provost-marshal was given power to arrest all ballad-singers. Organs were everywhere destroyed, and probably a great many viols, lutes, and other instruments. One gentleman, when he adopted Puritanism, had a deep hole dug in his garden, and buried in it "£200 worth of music-books, six feet underground, being, as he said, love-songs and vanity." This was a considerable sum indeed for an amateur to have spent in books of vocal music only; and as he continued to play "psalms and religious hymns on the theorbo," it may be presumed that what was interred formed but a portion of his musical collection.

The singers and instrumentalists dispersed by the orders of Parliament were reduced to the greatest poverty, and went round the country taking up their abode in gentlemen's houses, where they were gladly given quarters, when these gentlemen could afford it; but as many were utterly impoverished, often the musicians frequented the ale-houses, and picked up a precarious subsistence from the tavern frequenters. This had one advantage, for it no doubt helped to educate the village people generally in music. But even thus they got into trouble, for Oliver Cromwell's third Parliament passed an Act ordering the arrest and punishment of all minstrels and musicians who performed in taverns. Hitherto in country places the only instruments used had been rude, and the only music known was the ballad air, which also served as a dance-tune. Hence most of our old dances are known by the names of the ballads to which they were sung. But the dispersion of the orchestras from cathedrals and theatres and large town churches throughout the country places not only brought in a new notion of music, the playing of concerted pieces, but also in a great many cases placed the costly instruments at the disposal of village musicians. The old instrumentalists were obliged to part with their lutes and theorbos, their viol de gambas and violins, at a low price; or dying in the villages where they had settled, they left their loved instruments to such men in the place as seemed likely to make good use of them. These old musicians in country places gathered men about them in their lodgings in the village ale-houses, and taught them a more artistic method of playing, and a higher class of music, and they really gave that impetus to orchestral church music which only died out—shall we not rather say was killed?—within the memory of man.

The old village musician was a man remarkable in his way. One, David Turton, of Horbury, in Yorkshire, was perhaps typical of the better class. A man of intense enthusiasm for his art, and passionate love of his viol; one may be quite sure that his viol shared his bed, taking it by day when Turton was out of it, like Box and Cox. The story was told of him, that he was returning one night from a concert at Wakefield, where he had been performing, when he passed through a field in which was a savage bull. The bull seeing him began to bellow, and run at him with lowered horns. "Now then," said old David, "that note must be double B." He whipped the bass viol out of the green bag, set it down, and drew his bow over the strings, to try to hit the note bellowed. The bull, staggered at the response, stopped, threw up his head, and—turned tail.

But there were musicians of a less dignified character, jolly, reckless, drinking dogs, who fiddled at every festive gathering till they could fiddle no more. They were invariably present at a wedding.