Page [9]. “April is in my mistress’ face.”—Compare Robert Greene’s verses in “Perimedes, the Blacksmith,” 1588:—
“Fair is my love, for April in her face,
Her lovely breasts September claims his part,
And lordly July in her eyes takes place:
But cold December dwelleth in her heart:
Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire,
Accurs’d that month that hindereth my desire!”
Page [11]. “The Urchins’ Dance” is from the anonymous play “The Maid’s Metamorphosis,” 1600. In the same play are the following dainty verses;—
“1 Fairy.
2 Fairy.
3 Fairy.
Thomas Ravenscroft, compiler of the “Brief Discourse,” won his spurs at a very early age. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music before he had reached his fifteenth year, as we learn from some commendatory verses prefixed to the “Brief Discourse;”—
“Non vidit tria lustra puer, quin arte probatus,
Vita laudatus, sumpsit in arte gradum.”
He was twenty-two when he published the “Brief Discourse” in 1614: but in 1611 be had published “Melismata, musical fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours,” and he edited two collections that appeared in 1609—“Pammelia” and “Deuteromelia.” “Pammelia” is the earliest English printed collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons; both words and music were for the most part older than the date of publication. “Deuteromelia” was intended as a continuation of “Pammelia.”
Page [12]. Robert Dowland, editor of “A Musical Banquet,” was a son of John Dowland; he succeeded his father as one of the Court musicians in 1626, and was alive in 1641.