Conjectural Identity.—Malone, Collier, and Dyce give no clue; in fact they do not exhaust the materials in Henslowe. Langbaine mentions only the printed play. Hunter, in his Chorus Vatum Anglicanorum[1589] says "it can hardly be doubted that this is the same Henry Porter of Christ Church who was made Bachelor of Music in July, 1600 (Alumn. Oxon. III. 1182). Wood says that he had seen some of his compositions, but thinks none were extant when he wrote. This Henry Porter was father of Walter Porter, Master of the Choristers at Westminster, who had friends in Sir Edward Spencer and Edward Laurence. He was related to Dr. John Wilson." Foster in the Alumni Oxonienses, tells us, in addition, that Walter became gentleman of the Chapel Royal of Charles I. This information is all traceable to Wood's Fasti,[1590] but Wood does not attempt to identify Henry Porter the dramatist with Henry Porter the musical composer. Of the latter we learn, from the Register of the University of Oxford,[1591] that he had studied music for twelve years and had "composed" before he took his degree, July 4, 1600. There is no record of a degree in arts, nor of matriculation, at Christ Church; this musical activity would seem, however, to have occupied the career of the future bachelor of music from a date eight years before Porter the dramatist appeared in Henslowe's employ to a date after our poet had borrowed his last half-crown from that employer. "The statutable conditions for the degree of Mus. Bac." at that time, say Boase and Clark,[1592] "were that the candidate should have been seven years in re musica, and that he should compose and cause to be sung in the university a canticum quinque partium, giving three days' notice of the performance of this exercise." That a student like Porter of Christ Church, who had proceeded leisurely through his course in music, taking twelve years instead of the seven prescribed, and who, meanwhile, was composing canticles on elevated and, probably, sacred themes, should be a man of maturity and acknowledged worth is only natural to suppose. And such was the esteem in which Porter of Christ Church was held by an Oxford undergraduate of that day, who addresses him in the following verses, published in 1599:[1593]—
Porter I durst not mell with sacred writ,
Nor woe the mistris fore I win the maide;
For my yong yeres are taskt; its yet unfitte,
For youth as eld is never halfe so staid.
Thy selfe which hath the summe of Art and Wit
Thus much I know unto me would have said;
Thy silver bell could not so sweetly sing
If that too soone thou hadst begun her ring."