1 “Hamlet,” Act III., Scene 2.Google Scholar

2 “Hamlet,” Act II., Scene 2.Google Scholar

3 In “Henry VIII.” (Act III., Scene 1), Queen Katharine calls for music to dispel sadness:—

The song sung in obedience to the Queen's command, tells us that—

Henry IV. (the Second Part of “King Henry IV.,” Act IV., Scene 4), on regaining consciousness from a swoon caused by joy, expresses a wish for music: —

[They convey the King into an inner part of the room, and place him on a bed.

Warwick.—Call for the music in the other room.

Compare “Julius Cæsar,” Act IV., Scene 3, where Brutus, after great mental agitation, tells his boy to touch his instrument a strain or two.

Hamlet was subject to thoughts of suicide, the result of his infirmity to which he alludes in the speech just quoted above, melancholia; an affection for which, from the time of Saul, music has been looked upon as a remedy. In “Pericles” (Act V., Scene 1), the “sacred physick,” singing, is resorted to in a case of dumbness, in “a kingly patient,” brought on by melancholia. In “The Tempest” (Act V., Scene 1), “solemn,” or “heavenly,” music (solemnity, be it remembered, next to sweetness, was the distinctive attribute of the recorder) is used to restore reason:—

[Solemn music.

Prospero.—A solemn air and the best comforter

Such was the belief of the immortal bard in the power of our art, that he has recourse to it, not only to help “madmen to their wits,” but even to bring the seeming dead to life. On the coffin, or chest, which contained the body of Thaisa, being opened (“Pericles,” Act III., Scene 2), Cerimon, who had previously made known that he had “studied physick,” cries—

The success of the treatment, as might be expected, makes the reputation of Cerimon as a student of physick:

First Gentleman.—The heavens, Sir,

See also “A Winter's Tale,” Act V., Scene 3, and “King Lear,” Act IV., Scene 7.

As I am writing for musicians, I ought not to omit to add that there is a difference of opinion amongst critics on the meaning of the word viol, used by Cerimon. Malone thinks that a small bottle is meant; Dyce says that, judging from the context, the musical instrument of that name is intended. In the first, second, and third Quarto the word is spelt violl; in the fourth, fifth, and sixth, and the third Folio, viall; in the fourth Folio, vial; but no dependence can be placed on the spelling as a guide to the sense.

5 There were sixteen shares. Shakespeare is known to have held at least two. His holding is said to have brought him in at one time more than four hundred a year. But the Globe bad its ‘downs’ as well as its ‘ups.’ When the boys from the Chapel Royal became so popular as actors at the Blackfriars Theatre, the receipts fell off to such an extent that the House was closed and the Company went on tour, a circumstance alluded to in “Hamlet.” The passage relating to it is given in modern editions of Shakespeare (“Hamlet,” Act II. Scene 2), although it is not found in the Quartos, but only in the Folios, the text of which was taken from the acting version of the Globe. Rosencrantz tells Hamlet that the little eyases, as he calls the boys, have become the fashion, and says that they carry off “Hercules and his load too,” there being a figure of Hercules with a globe on his back at the Playhouse. Hamlet asks five or six questions about the children.Google Scholar

The actors were not paid fixed salaries; they divided the takings with the shareholders, those actors who were also shareholders benefiting, of course, in the double capacity. The shareholders took half of the gross receipts, out of which they paid certain employées known as hirelings. As the recorder-players would have been personated by hirelings (unless the actors reappeared as musicians), the expense of engaging them, as well as the cost of their costumes and instruments, would not have fallen on the actors, but on the shareholders.Google Scholar

6 See below, Note 22, where the passage is quoted as it appears in the Folio. Referring to the substitution of ‘a recorder’ for ‘the recorders.’ Dyce says that it is an alteration which he has not the slightest doubt we must attribute to the ‘company,’ who, be considers, were obliged to be economical both of persons and properties. A single recorder, he adds, suffices for the business of the scene; but the alteration is quite at variance with what precedes, ‘Come, some music; come, the recorders.’Google Scholar

7 Prætorius gives a representation not only of the recorders in use in his time, but of the whole fipple-flute family, from the little flutelet, an instrument with only four holes, down to the double bass recorder. His drawing of them is reproduced in the writer's Paper on ‘Literature relating to the Recorder,’ Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 173.Google Scholar

8 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 215.Google Scholar

9 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1900–1901, p. 117.Google Scholar

10 The story that the English pitch was raised by Sir Michael Costa with the approval, if not at the instigation, of Mario, Grisi, Persiani, Alboni, and the other great singers who joined him, when he left Her Majesty's for Covent Garden in 1847, is purely apocryphal. Sir Michael in a letter to me, dated December 12, 1881, wrote: “When I conducted at Her Majesty's Theatre, at the Philharmonic Concerts, and at Covent Garden Theatre, I had the same band and consequently the same pitch.”Google Scholar

11 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 167.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 175.Google Scholar

13 The figure is a favourite with Shakespeare; he had already used it in “Hamlet” in the early part of the same scene:—

In the Induction to the Second Part of “King Henry IV.” the metaphor is still further developed. The flute is there personified as Rumour, who comes on the stage, “painted full of tongues,” and declares himself to be a pipe on which “the multitude” can play. The passage is clothed in highly-wrought imagery:—

14 Of the different explanations which have been proposed of the obscure phrase ‘to recover the wind of me,’ that which finds most favour with critics is that the expression refers to the way in which deerstalkers and other hunters endeavour to get near to their prey by advancing against the wind, so that the animal may not detect their approach by its sense of smell. It has never been suggested that in ‘to recover the wind’ there is an allusion to the wind instrument Hamlet has just taken into his hand, or that the words have any reference to music.Google Scholar

15 None of the expositions offered of Guildenstern's speech, “if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly,” is very satisfactory. Clarendon sensibly remarks that as Hamlet did not well understand it, commentators may be excused from attempting to explain it.Google Scholar

16 ’ The umber’ is a printer's error. Shakespeare, we may feel sure, intended to write ‘thumb,’ which he might have spelt ‘thumbe. Possibly, in the manuscript from which the Quarto of 1604 was printed, the ‘th’ might have been separated from the ‘u,’ and a flourish of some kind made after the ‘e.’ However this may be, the compositor inserted an ‘e’ after the ‘th,’ and added an ‘r’ after the ‘e’ at the end of the word, thus converting ‘thumbe’ into ‘the umber.’ The mistake was continued in the Quarto of 1605, but in the Quarto of 1611 an attempt was made to set the text right; but the way in which the error originated not being perceived, ‘the umber’ was altered into ‘the thumb,’ instead of, as it should have been, into ‘thumb.’ In the next Quarto, which bears no date, we still find ‘the thumb.’ Even when the last Quarto, that of 1637, was prepared for the press, the cause of the misprint was not recognised, but a change was made in the spelling, ‘the thumb ‘becoming ‘the thumbe.’Google Scholar

The Folio of 1623 gives ‘thumbe’ quite correctly without the ‘the.’ But here another mistake is made; ‘fingers ‘is converted into ‘finger,’ a blunder repeated in some modern editions of Shakespeare.Google Scholar

See the “Proceedings of the Musical Association” 1897–98, pp. 148—149, where the subject is discussed at greater length.Google Scholar

17 Here, in the Quarto of 1604, Hamlet addresses himself to Guildenstern only, but in the issue of 1603, the surreptitious copy believed to be a compilation from memory or notes taken during the representation, he invites both of his fellow-students to play on the recorder, as will be seen from the following, which is the text of the scene in that edition:—

18 The sentence should read ‘from my lowest note to the top of my compass.’ ‘The top of,’ omitted here, appears in the Folio.Google Scholar

19 In the Folio of 1623, the passage ‘there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe,’ reads differently, ‘speak’ and ‘S'blood’ being omitted, and ‘why’ inserted; thus: ‘there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it. Why do you think,’ &c. Bearing in mind that the Folio was, in all likelihood, taken from the acting copy of the Play, we may suppose that ‘why’ was substituted for ‘S'blood’ in deference to the susceptibilities of Shakespeare's foes, the Puritans. The omission of ‘speak’ has been thought to be due to the circumstance that the word was struck out accidentally when the alteration was made in the text. Knight, however, in the first edition of his Shakespeare, defends the reading of the Folio, on the ground that ‘speak’ is used in its musical sense, as equivalent to ‘sound.’ The fipple-flute sounds more easily than any other wind instrument, no skill being required to elicit a note. Guildenstern, says Knight, could make the recorder speak, though he could not make it utter harmony; and he contends that the passage as printed in the Quartos should be pointed thus: ‘yet cannot you make it. Speak ! S'blood,’ &c. But there can be little doubt that ‘speak’ corresponds to ‘discourse’ in Hamlet's preceding speech. This seems to have been afterwards admitted by Knight, for, in a later edition, he withdraws his objection to the reading usually received, observing, “We now prefer to consider the Folio erroneous.”Google Scholar

20 ‘Though you fret me not’ is obviously incorrect. Both the Quarto of 1603 and the Folio of 1623 read ‘though you can fret me.’Google Scholar

21 It does not appear to have occurred to any of the writers who have attempted to throw light on the passage, that Hamlet's object in withdrawing with the courtiers is to take them out of the hearing of the musicians; an explanation which, to a flute-player, seems to be self-evident. Monk Mason declares that the words ‘to withdraw with you’ have no meaning as they stand, “yet,” he adds, “none of the editors have attempted to amend them.” Capell thinks that Hamlet intended to say ‘to have done with you, draw toward an end with you.’ Steevens says that the obscure words may refer to some gesture which Guildenstern had used, and which was at first interpreted by Hamlet as a signal for him to attend the speaker into another room. So, too, Caldecott: “They [Guildenstern and Rosencrantz] by a waving of the hand or some such signal, as the exclamation of Ham. denotes, intimate that he should remove to a more retired quarter.”Google Scholar

22 In the Folio of 1623, the passage appears thus:—

23 When Hamlet calls for the recorders, it is usual for Horatio to go and fetch the players, and return with them.Google Scholar

24 Rosencrantz and Gnildenstern exeunt, but Horatio and the Players with draw. Capell appends the following explanatory note: “It will be seen from the regulation of the exits at the bottom of this page what is the editor's opinion concerning who the word ‘friends’ is address'd to, and, consequently, what the tone of pronouncing it should be.”Google Scholar

26 If we take one of the fundamental notes, say, for instance, E, by blowing with great force we can, without changing the fingering, produce an E two octaves higher, but it will be dull, flat, and unpleasant to the ear. If we now open the A hole, the high E will become bright, sharp, and clear. The A hole, when used in this way, is called a vent hole.Google Scholar

27 Ut citharis modulans unius verbere plectri

28 Nec tu enim si in tibiam flaveris, hominem tibiam feceris, quanquam de animâ tuâ flaveris, sicut et Deus de spiritu suo. Adv. Marcion. Lib. VI.Google Scholar

29 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 199.Google Scholar

30 Fludd wrote in Latin. The original of the passage here translated will be found in Cap. VI. (p.95), of his treatise ‘De Musica mundana,’ published in Vol. I. of his work, entitled ‘Utriusque Cosmi,’ &c.Google Scholar

31 Engel's Catalogue of the Instruments in the South Kensington Museum, p. 68.Google Scholar

32 . The allusion is to the circumstance that the pipes of the syrinx were united to each other by means of wax.Google Scholar

33 The pipes were made of reedsGoogle Scholar

34 The lotus here referred to is not the Egyptian lotus, but an African wood of which some flutes were made.Google Scholar

35 Sidonius Lib. ix., Epist. 13. See Milne Patrologiæ Cursus, Vol. LVII., p. 613.Google Scholar

36 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 146.Google Scholar

37 The full title of the copy of the work in the library of the British Museum is as follows: The Delightful Companion: or, choice new lessons for the Recorder or Flute, to which is added, several lessons for two and three flutes to play together. Also Plain and Easy Instructions for Beginners, and the several graces proper to the Instrument.Google Scholar

The Second Edition Corrected London, Printed for John Playford, at his Shop near the Temple Church; and for John Carr, at his Shop at the Middle Temple Gate, 1686.Google Scholar

According to Kidson (British Music Publishers), The Delightful Companion was published in 1683, and advertised in 1684 and 1685.Google Scholar

1 Proceedings of the Musical Association, 1897–98, p. 199, Note 69.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 176.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 173.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 167Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 162.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 219 to 221.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., pp. 145 to 148.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 190.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 189.Google Scholar