In answer to an inquiry in The Times, respecting the author of “God save the King,” the writers of several letters in that journal, during the present month, concur in ascribing the air of the “national anthem” to Dr. John Bull. This opinion results from recent researches, by the curious in music, which have been published in elaborate forms.
Dr. John Bull was a celebrated musician, born about 1563, in Somersetshire. His master in music was William Blitheman, organist of the chapel royal to queen Elizabeth, in which capacity he was much distinguished. Bull, on the death of his master in 1591, was appointed his successor. In 1592 he was created doctor in the university of Cambridge; and in 1596, at the recommendation of her majesty, he was made professor of music to Gresham college, which situation he resigned in 1607. During more than a year of his professorship, Mr. Thomas Bird, son of the venerable William Bird, exercised the office of a substitute to Dr. Bull, while he travelled on the continent for the recovery of his health. After the decease of queen Elizabeth, Bull was appointed chamber-musician to king James. In 1613, Dr. Bull finally quitted England, and entered into the service of the archduke, in the Netherlands. He afterwards seems to have settled at Lubec, from which place many of his compositions, in the list published by Dr. Ward, are dated; one of them so late as 1622, the supposed year of his decease. Dr. Bull has been censured for quitting his establishment in England; but it is probable that the increase of health and wealth was the cause and consequence of his removal. He seems to have been praised at home more than rewarded. The professorship of Gresham college was not then a sinecure. His attendance on the chapel royal, for which he had 40l. per annum, and on the prince of Wales, at a similar salary, though honourable, were not very lucrative appointments for the first performer in the world, at a time when scholars were not so profitable as at present, and there was no public performance where this most wonderful musician could display his abilities. A list of more than two hundred of Dr. Bull’s compositions, vocal and instrumental, is inserted in his life, the whole of which, when his biography was written in 1740, were preserved in the collection of Dr. Pepusch. The chief part of these were pieces for the organ and virginal.[57]
Anthony à Wood relates the following anecdote of this distinguished musician, when he was abroad for the recovery of his health in 1601:—
“Dr. Bull hearing of a famous musician belonging to a certain cathedral at St. Omer’s, he applied himself as a novice to him, to learn something of his faculty, and to see and admire his works. This musician, after some discourse had passed between them, conducted Bull to a vestry or music-school joining to the cathedral, and showed to him a lesson or song of forty parts, and then made a vaunting challenge to any person in the world to add one more part to them, supposing it to be so complete and full that it was impossible for any mortal man to correct or add to it; Bull thereupon desiring the use of pen, ink, and ruled paper, such as we call music paper, prayed the musician to lock him up in the said school for two or three hours; which being done, not without great disdain by the musician, Bull in that time, or less, added forty more parts to the said lesson or song. The musician thereupon being called in, he viewed it, tried it, and retried it; at length he burst out into a great ecstasy, and swore by the great God, that he that added those forty parts must either be the devil, or Dr. Bull, &c. Whereupon Bull making himself known, the musician fell down and adored him. Afterwards continuing there and in those parts for a time, he became so much admired, that he was courted to accept of any place or preferment suitable to his profession, either within the dominions of the emperor, king of France, or Spain; but the tidings of these transactions coming to the English court, queen Elizabeth commanded him home.”[58]
Dr. Burney disregards the preceding account as incredible; but Wood was a most accurate writer: and Dr. Bull, besides being a great master, was a lover of the difficulties in his science, and was therefore likely to seek them with delight, and accomplish them in a time surprisingly short to those who study melody rather than intricacy of composition.
It is related that in the reign of James I. “July the 16th, 1607, his majesty and prince Henry, with many of the nobility, and other honourable persons, dined at Merchant Taylors’ hall, it being the election-day of their master and wardens; when the company’s roll being offered to his majesty, he said he was already free of another company, but that the prince should grace them with the acceptance of his freedom, and that he would himself see when the garland was put on his head, which was done accordingly. During their stay, they were entertained with a great variety of music, both voices and instruments, as likewise with several speeches. And, while the king sat at dinner, Dr. Bull, who was free of that company, being in a cittizen’s gowne, cappe, and hood, played most excellent melodie uppon a small payre of organs, placed there for that purpose onely.”
From the only works of Dr. Bull in print, some lessons in the “Parthenia—the first music that was ever printed for the virginals,” he is deemed to have possessed a power of execution on the harpsichord far beyond what is generally conceived of the masters of that time. As to his lessons, they were, in the estimation of Dr. Pepusch, not only for the harmony and contrivance, but for air and modulation, so excellent, that he scrupled not to prefer them to those of Couperin, Scarlatti, and others of the modern composers for the harpsichord.
Dr. Pepusch had in his collection a book of lessons very richly bound, which had once been queen Elizabeth’s; in this were contained many lessons of Bull, so very difficult, that hardly any master of the doctor’s time was able to play them. It is well known, that Dr. Pepusch married the famous opera singer, signora Margarita de L’Pine, who had a very fine hand on the harpsichord: as soon as they were married, the doctor inspired her with the same sentiments of Bull as he himself had long entertained, and prevailed on her to practise his lessons; in which she succeeded so well, as to excite the curiosity of numbers to resort to his house at the corner of Bartlett’s-buildings, in Fetter-lane, to hear her. There are no remaining evidences of her unwearied application, in order to attain that degree of excellence which it is known she arrived at; but the book itself is yet in being, which in some parts of it is so discoloured by continual use, as to distinguish with the utmost degree of certainty the very lessons with which she was most delighted. One of them took up twenty minutes to go through it.[59]
Dr. Burney says, that Pepusch’s preference of Bull’s compositions to those of Couperin and Scarlatti, rather proves that the doctor’s taste was bad, than that Bull’s music was good; and he remarks, in reference to some of them, “that they may be heard by a lover of music, with as little emotion as the clapper of a mill, or the rumbling of a post-chaise.” It is a misfortune to Dr. Bull’s fame, that he left little evidence of his great powers, except the transcendantly magnificent air of “God save the king.”
February, 1827.*