P.S.—If Signor Donzelli should receive an application to sing at Oxford again, I would, for his own sake, strongly recommend that, before he accepts it, he will not only finally make up his own mind on the subject, and firmly abide by it, but also ascertain, whether, after being promised leave of absence from the Opera, he may safely rely on M. Laporte’s honourably keeping his word; that is, in case it should so chance that M. Laporte should be the manager of the Italian Opera twelve months hence.
THE SONG OF ‘MAD TOM OF BEDLAM.’
To the EDITOR of the HARMONICON.
SIR,
It would be difficult, perhaps, now to ascertain at what time, and by whom the song of ‘Mad Tom’ was first ascribed to Purcell; but that it was not always given to him is evident, from its having been inserted in a collection of songs published during his life, and these attributed to another composer, Henry Lawes; and though the claim of the latter may be doubted, from the dissimilarity of its style from that of his other compositions, yet having been published as his by Playford, it is a strong presumptive proof in favour of Lawes, for Playford was a musician of some eminence, and may be supposed to have lived on terms of intimacy with the professors of his day, and therefore well acquainted with their compositions.
With respect to the air which I sent you having been the basis on which the song was made, it may, I think, be inferred from the title that the song was the original, and that being popular, it was in consequence adapted as an air for the Virginals, the title of it, ‘The Man in the Moon,’ being the first line of one of the stanzas in the song: ‘The man in the moon drinks claret.’ The inaccuracies in this air, whatever they may be, must be imputed to the original transcriber, mine being a faithful copy from his book, the date of which, being about twenty years before the birth of Purcell, renders it impossible that he should have been the composer of the song in question.
The latter part of the song, from ‘In my triumphant chariot,’ I have seen printed as a single song, with Haydn’s name to it as the composer.
Can you furnish we with any information respecting the music to which the various songs in the plays of Shakspeare were originally sung, the whole now performed, except the fragments sung by Ophelia, being of modern date?
I remain, &c.
AN OLD MEMBER OF THE PUMP-ROOM BAND, BATH.