CHAPTER X.

WOMEN AND THE ARTS.

Development of the arts in the seventeenth century--Introduction of women on the stage--Corruption of the period--Character of the drama--Wearing masks by spectators--The French company at Blackfriars Theatre--The first English company with women players--Famous actresses--English female artists in the Stuart period--Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts--Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser elected members--Their career--Fanny Reynolds--Sir Joshua’s opinion of his sister’s work--Mrs. Cosway--Mrs. Carpenter--Character of eighteenth-century work--Women’s place in musical art--Musical education in early times--Love of music in the sixteenth century--Instruments played by women--Music abolished by the Puritans--Musical maidservants in the seventeenth century--The first English opera--Purcell’s early work--Performance at a ladies’ school.

It is in the seventeenth century, remarkable for political and religious strife, and a general unsettling of society, that the history of the fine arts, as far as women are concerned, really begins. There is, in fact, very little to record of the progress of the arts in England before this period. Unfavourable as the age seemed for artistic progress when the public mind was so largely occupied with momentous questions affecting the national life, it was signalized by three notable events, viz. the introduction of women to the stage, the commencement of English opera, and the uprising of female painters. The dramatic revolution, as it may be called, being the most striking of these events, will be touched upon first.

The middle of the seventeenth century, when women first began to appear on the stage in England, was a period of unexampled laxity. It was not simply that morality was at a low ebb, and that the passions reigned uppermost. That was the case in feudal times when the intellectual side of humanity was only half awakened, and the range of interests and ideas, of taste and knowledge, was limited by physical obstacles. The world was a sealed book to mediæval men and women. But the seventeenth century had no such excuse. It had opened the clasps; it had the power of choice, but it hugged the sins of past ages to its breast. Seeing the good, it chose the evil.

It was an unfortunate moment for the introduction of actresses, and their presence gave rise to many scandals, but abuses had long been rife on the stage, and dramatic performances had been occasionally suspended even in the reign of Elizabeth. The blame cannot be attributed to the pernicious example of France as far as the plays themselves are concerned, for it is agreed that French comedy in the reign of Charles II. was not in the least coarse. This was the period of Molière’s fame. Two or three years after the accession of Anne, who did not countenance playhouses by her presence, the Puritan party of that day earnestly hoped that the Queen might be induced to interdict stage performances, or at least to prohibit certain pieces. There is not the slightest doubt that the complaints made of obscene language and manners were well founded. The plays remain as witnesses, and the record of the scenes enacted in the green-room and the general licence indulged in by the players furnish condemnatory evidence. But the purists were not content with trying to uphold morality and public decency. At that time natural phenomena were still regarded by many people with superstitious terror. Sickness, storms, and other calamities were looked upon as the visitations of wrathful Providence.

Now it happened that a disastrous tempest had been raging, a tempest fiercer than any known for many years. A day of fasting and humiliation had been appointed, and in the face of that public acknowledgment of national sin the irreverent players chose to produce _Macbeth_ and _The Tempest_, with as faithful a representation of real storms as they could contrive.

“Surely,” writes one shocked contemporary, “the Players have little reason to expect that they shall still go on in their abominable Outrages; who, ’tis to be observed with Indignation, did, as we are assured, within a few days after we felt the late dreadful storm, entertain their audience with the ridiculous Representation of what had filled us with so great Horror in their Plays called _Macbeth_ and _The Tempest_, as if they designed to Mock the Almighty Power of God, _who alone commands the Winds and the Seas, and they obey him_.”[57]

Queen Anne did not suspend the plays, but she issued an edict for the better regulation of the theatres. With a view to abolishing abuses and indecencies, it was commanded--

“that no person of what quality soever presume to go behind the scenes or come upon the stage either before or during the acting of any play; that no woman be allowed or presume to wear a vizard mask in either of the theatres,”[58]

together with several other regulations.

It was customary in the days of Charles II. for ladies to go to the theatre masked, the presumption being that the language of the plays was so coarse that no woman could sit and hear them in mixed company with her face uncovered. But it was a practice that was liable to lead to all sorts of disorders. Under the disguise of the mask women of all degrees accosted strangers, and there were always men ready enough to avail themselves of the general licence as to behaviour. Ladies then sat in the pit, which, after the boxes, was the most aristocratic portion of the house, for which the prices ranged from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._ in the money of that period.

The custom of having women to act was introduced from the Continent, where it had long prevailed. At the time when Corneille’s plays were constantly being acted, about 1633, there were a good many actresses on the French stage. There was much dramatic activity in Paris at that time. The French were very eager playgoers, and when a tragedy having, for its subject the story of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn was produced, there was such a rush to see the piece that four doorkeepers were crushed to death on the first night, greatly to the pride and delight of the author, Jean Puget de la Serre, who exclaimed with triumph: “Voilà ce qu’on appelle de bonnes pièces.” In his exultation he declared he would not yield the palm to Corneille, until his great contemporary had caused _five_ doorkeepers to be killed in one day.

In the prevailing state of easy morals in the England of the Restoration the appearance of actresses was an incentive to licence, and every advantage was taken of the innovation by the court gallants. The actresses were probably no worse than many of the ladies in the audience, but their mere existence gave occasion for evil. Evelyn, whose code of morals and taste were too high for that period, says, in 1666, that he hardly ever goes to the theatres--

“for many reasons now, as they were abused to an atheistical liberty. Fowle and indecent women now, and never till now, were permitted to appear and act.”

Thomas Brand, a Puritan, expressed great delight when he heard that certain actresses had been hissed and pelted. The first result of bringing women on to the stage was to give the rein to more unbridled licence than before in the manners of the court and of society.

It was the presence of Queen Henrietta which brought over a French company of players with women among them to England in 1659. They established themselves at the celebrated theatre in Blackfriars. But whether their distinguished countrywoman was unable or unwilling to do anything on their behalf, they were very roughly received, less because of the women in the company than because they were foreigners. Their advent gave Prynne an opportunity for venting his indignation. To the stern Puritan the sight of women on the boards was a great additional aggravation. No English company seems to have introduced women till 1660. Pepys, who, as every one knows, was an indefatigable playgoer, records that the first time he saw women act was on January 3, 1660. This was at the Theatre Royal, Clare Market, the play being _The Beggar’s Bush_. Three days later he saw actresses in Ben Jonson’s play, _The Silent Woman_. It has been said that _Othello_ was the play in which women first appeared in England, at a performance given on December 8, 1660. Mrs. Anne Marshall, Mrs. Sanders (afterwards to become famous as Mrs. Betterton, a most successful impersonator of Shakespeare’s female parts), Mrs. Margaret Hughes, and Mrs. Coleman were among the first actresses who appeared in public. Mrs. Betterton, whose character was unexceptionable, was selected to give lessons in elocution to the two princesses, Mary and Anne, daughters of James II.

A sort of precedent for women acting in stage plays was to be found in the court performances. It was not till the reign of Charles II. that professional actresses appeared in public, but Queen Anne, wife of James I., was accustomed to take an active part in the masques performed at court, where she was both actress and manager.[59] That these were not mere impromptus may be gathered from the fact that the cost of a performance often exceeded £1000. In the reign of Charles I. the ladies of the court, headed by the Queen, Henrietta Maria, played a French pastoral at Hampton Court to enliven the Christmas season. The French Queen was very favourably disposed towards the stage, and when the churchwardens and constables in 1631 petitioned Archbishop Laud to get Blackfriars Theatre removed, on the ground that it was a nuisance to trade and the public generally, and begged that the council would see to the matter, the answer was returned that the queen was “well affected towards plays, and that therefore good regulation is more to be provided than suppression decreed.” Various members of the aristocracy also took to the stage, or rather the actors under their protection. One of the most constant supporters of the dramatic art was the Countess of Holland, daughter of Sir Walter Cope, whose husband had been executed in 1649. Holland House, Kensington, was frequently the scene of dramatic entertainments.

Women are now so necessary to stage performances that it is odd to find arguments gravely set forth in favour of their presence. The reasons assigned for introducing women were that men failed to act women’s parts satisfactorily; that boys were no more suitable than girls, and some of the “boys” were middle-aged men, who could not properly impersonate young maidens. When in the reign of Charles II. patents were granted to Killigrew and Davenant for their theatres, the following regulations appeared--

“And forasmuch as many plays formerly acted do contain several profane, obscene, and scurrilous passages, and the women’s parts therein have been acted by men in the habits of women at which some have taken offence; for the preventing of these abuses for the future we do strictly charge, command and enjoin that from henceforth no new plays shall be acted by either of the said companies containing any passages offensive to piety and good manners, nor any old or revived play containing any such offensive passages as aforesaid, until the same shall be corrected and purged by the said masters or governors of the said respective companies from all such offensive and scandalous passages as aforesaid. And we do likewise permit and give leave that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies from this time to come may be performed by women, so long as these recreations which by reason of the abuses aforesaid were scandalous and offensive may by such reformation be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and instructive representations of human life, by such of our good subjects as shall resort to see the same.”

The character of the plays acted in the seventeenth century fitted the temper of the times. Wycherley, Congreve, Mrs. Aphra Behn, and their brothers and sisters in the craft were not too outspoken for the taste of that day. Evelyn, it is true, was a severe censor, but he was a man of the world who had travelled and seen many things. “In London,” he says, “there were more wicked and obscene plays permitted than in all the world besides.” And this, too, in Lent, which added much to the offence.

It is said that the audiences give the tone to the stage, and that a moral and cultured public would purify the drama. The audiences of the Restoration period did not certainly perform their part towards effecting such a consummation. Their behaviour in the playhouse has often been noted. They showed plainly that low jests and coarse allusions were to their taste and what they expected, and they would have scoffed at or yawned over more decorous language. If the piece were not to their liking they treated the performers with scant ceremony, and hissed and pelted them. Such demonstrations were the more frequent owing to the custom of caricaturing living persons. The actresses, when not playing, moved about in the front rows of the auditorium among their admirers. Then, again, the occupants of the pit would make audible comments on the ladies sitting in the boxes, who did not disdain to retort, greatly to the amusement of the rest of the house. The theatre was the rallying point for adventurers and libertines of both sexes, and served many purposes besides its legitimate one of entertainment.

In the eighteenth century, when the custom of toasting ladies prevailed, plays were given “for the entertainment of the new Toasts and several Ladies of Quality.” This always brought a crowded audience. The auditorium was frequently the scene of quarrels, and the custom of allowing spectators to stand about on the stage was the cause of much disorder. On one occasion, in 1721, a regular fray occurred, owing to the presence of some tipsy noblemen; and the king, George I., gave orders that thenceforth a guard of soldiers should protect the actors during the performance. One could not expect in that age to find any regard paid to the sentiments of women, and omissions made from the plays lest their susceptibilities should be wounded. Yet this was done in one instance certainly,[60] and the passage left out was not one of peculiar coarseness, but one which vaunted man’s superiority over woman. Those were not the days of equal rights between men and women, and there could hardly have been many women who would have been offended at the claims of the male sex to supremacy. Dr. Trusler, writing of the eighteenth century, says--

“Many of our comedies are improper for a young lady to be seen at; as, indeed, there are few English comedies that a modest girl can see without hurting her delicacy.”

The attentions of the audience to a popular actress were a little overwhelming at times. A knot of admirers would gather round the door of a lady’s dressing-room, and insist upon escorting her home. As late as the middle of the century the manners of the gallery were so rough that it was no uncommon thing for an orange to be flung at a lady in court dress.

Whatever condemnation the stage incurred in the seventeenth century, it was, whether deservedly or not, quite as much held up to opprobrium in the eighteenth. A tract, published in 1726 by William Law, after describing the playhouse as a “sink of corruption and debauchery,” goes on to say--

“This is not the state of the Play House through any accidental abuse, as any innocent or good thing may be abused; but that corruption and debauchery are the truly natural and genuine effects of the stage entertainment.”

But in spite of the abuses that existed in connection with the stage, the fact remains that all through the eighteenth century there was a succession of actresses whose celebrity was not confined to their own age. The mere mention of the names of Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Porter, Peg Woffington, Mrs. Cibber, Kitty Clive, and, later, the incomparable Sarah Siddons, Miss Farren, and Mrs. Jordan, recalls the glories of the playhouse and the privileges enjoyed by audiences of those days.

In the last century it would have seemed scarcely less absurd to question the propriety of having women to act than it would now. The difference in the course of little over fifty years was marvellous. There is no department of the fine arts in which women have progressed with so much rapidity as in acting. It is hardly necessary to record the triumphs won by popular actresses, or to chronicle the successes which have marked the career of numbers who are not in the first rank. Women have entered upon the stage as upon their natural inheritance. Their presence has stimulated the talents of their male compeers. The attempt to represent human nature with only one half of humanity seems absurdly futile to later generations, who find it impossible to conceive of stage performances in which the players were all men.

It has been seen how the first advent of women on the stage was productive of increased licence and freedom of manners--an almost inevitable result considering what the age was, and the novelty of the experiment. The influence of the drama in England, and the important part which it has played in the development of our social life, have been very widely discussed. Those who view the stage as a great educator, and those--a dwindling number--who regard it as a debaser of public morals, can both find apt illustrations to prove their contentions. But whichever standpoint be taken, the stage, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was far more than at the present day the national recreation. There were fewer counterbalancing attractions.

The Puritan party as a whole, of course, held the stage in horror, but more than one actress whose name has come down to us was descended from a stern Republican--like Anne and Rebecca Marshall, who were said to be daughters of a divine of the Long Parliament. The dissoluteness of the stage was in part attributable to the Puritan spirit which kept the soberer members of the community from countenancing the theatre by their presence, and deterred some from entering the dramatic profession. Stage-acting was decried as a calling to which only the debased would resort, and there were plentiful exhortations to those who valued their soul’s welfare to abstain from looking upon corrupting sights. It was difficult, especially in the seventeenth century, for women of unblemished reputation to go on the stage without being besmirched with the vices of the worst of their companions. Many of the mistresses of Charles II. and his courtiers belonged to the theatrical profession. But the century which delighted in the fascinations of Nell Gwynn, in the beauty of Moll Davies, which watched the performances of Prince Rupert’s mistress, Mrs. Hughes, saw also the famous Mrs. Betterton, of unquestioned virtue, and such actresses as Mrs. Bracegirdle and Elizabeth Barry. There never has been a time when the stage has been without women of high repute as well as brilliant talent to uphold its honour.

It is not until the reign of Charles I. that there is any record of women artists. The first efforts of English artists were directed to the illumination of manuscripts. It was for several centuries the only kind of art worth mentioning in England. There were, it is true, clever goldsmiths and workers in precious stones. It was the custom to have books, especially religious books, richly bound and ornamented. Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, gave a missal with gold clasps, which had belonged to the Duchess of Portland, to her nephew, Henry VI. But there was little painting of pictures, except of the rudest kind, up to the seventeenth century. And, as far as women are concerned, the record is absolutely bare. They do not even appear among the illuminators. But with the days of Vandyck’s residence in England begins our roll of female artists. Anne Carlisle shared the royal patronage with the great Flemish painter, whom she outlived. She was a great favourite at court, and the king’s fine taste would not have tolerated an inferior artist. Then followed a period when the fine arts were forgotten in the turmoil of war, and crushed by the gloomy, repressive Puritan spirit. But after the Restoration, matters changed, and from that time onwards there is a steadily increasing stream of artists, though the women are few in number, up to the present century. The only female painters of any note in the seventeenth century were those who obtained royal patronage, like Mary Beale, a painter in both oil and water-colours, and a most industrious artist, highly commended by the famous portrait painter, Sir Peter Lely. Anne Killigrew, maid of honour to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, had only twenty-five years in which to make a name, but she has secured a niche not only through her pictures, which included portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York, but also by her verses.

It is anticipating events to proceed to the days of Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser, but, for the sake of preserving the continuity of the subject, a rapid review may be taken of the work done by women in the last century.

In 1768 the Royal Academy was founded, the first keeper being George Moser, for many years manager of a private academy for artists in St. Martin’s Lane, London. He was the father of Mary Moser, who, like Angelica Kaufmann, was elected a member of the Royal Academy, these two being the only women on whom that honour was conferred. Both had signed a memorial to George III. in favour of the foundation of an Academy of Arts. When it was opened in 1769, Angelica Kaufmann sent two large paintings, and she continued for years to be an exhibitor. Mary Moser sent a flower piece in oils, and two years later a figure subject. After her marriage with Captain Lloyd she ceased to appear among the ranks of professional painters, though she continued to exhibit at the Academy uninterruptedly until 1779, and at intervals to a later period, her last contribution being in the year 1800.

Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser were both of Swiss parentage. Angelica’s father was a native of Schwartzenberg, near Lake Constance, and George Moser was born at Schaffhausen. Angelica Kaufmann was born about 1741--the exact date is uncertain--and Mary Moser in 1744. But while the more celebrated artist spent the years of her childhood among the beautiful surroundings of Morbegno, in Lombardy, and on the shores of Lake Como, and acquired her early training in the galleries of Milan, Mary Moser was born and educated in England. Angelica Kaufmann did not come to this country until 1765, after she had made a name for herself in Italy, and had helped her father to decorate the Church of Schwartzenberg with frescoes, had painted the portraits of several noble personages, had been warmly praised and munificently treated by the Bishop of Constance, and had become the pet of the ladies about the court of the Governor of Milan, Francis III., Duke of Modena. It was through Lady Wentworth, the wife of the English Minister at Venice, Mr. Murray, that Angelica Kaufmann came to England, where she was welcomed by artists both English and foreign, and made much of in the fashionable world. The painter Fuseli, whom she had already met in Rome, was desperately in love with her, but she, unfortunately, fell into the meshes of that arch adventurer who passed himself off as Count de Horn, while her fellow-artist, Mary Moser, was languishing for love of Fuseli, who was indifferent or blind to her attachment. In 1781 Angelica Kaufmann married Antonio Zucchi, a Venetian artist, and left England for Italy never to return. Fuseli consoled himself with a Miss Sophia Rawlins in 1788, the year in which he was elected Associate of the Royal Academy, and Miss Moser married Captain Hugh Lloyd.

Mary Moser, at the time when she and Angelica Kaufmann joined the ranks of the “Forty,” was the only flower painter in the Academy, with the exception of John Baker. If Angelica Kaufmann, with her brilliant beauty and talents, has eclipsed her humbler friend, yet Miss Moser contrived to secure a very fair share of artistic success. She gained very practical recognition from the royal family, the Queen commissioning her to paint a room at Frogmore, for which she was paid £900. The whole decoration of this room was in flowers, flower-painting being Miss Moser’s speciality. The last time she exhibited at the Academy she sent a figure subject.

Fanny Reynolds, the retiring and unappreciated sister of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was one of Angelica Kaufmann’s many friends. Perhaps she did not object to the romantic devotion paid by her famous brother to the fascinating young Italian artist who captivated all hearts. Frances Reynolds had many difficulties in the way of her artistic studies. She got no help or even encouragement from her brother, who, far from tendering her any advice, disliked to see her paint, and ridiculed her miniatures, which, he said, “make other people laugh and me cry.” Perhaps James Northcote, Sir Joshua’s pupil, was right when he said that Miss Reynolds’s portraits were an exact imitation of Sir Joshua’s defects. This would account for the unfavourable judgment and harsh treatment poor Fanny always received from her brother.

Mrs. Cosway, another of Angelica Kaufmann’s friends, and one of a very smart circle, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. She was the daughter of an Englishman, or Irishman, named Hadfield, who kept an hotel at Florence, and sent his little girl to a convent to be educated. She wished to become a nun, but was dissuaded from that course by her mother desiring her company when her father died, and the family moved to England. It was Angelica Kaufmann who eventually completed the work of converting Maria Hadfield from a religious to a secular life. Her husband was an R.A., wealthy, and much admired as an artist. Mrs. Cosway, like her husband, painted miniatures, and was very successful. She also possessed a good deal of musical talent, and was personally attractive, so that between them Mr. and Mrs. Cosway made numerous friends and quantities of money, for Cosway had a keen eye to business, and could turn everything to account. Their receptions were noted, and were attended by artists, men of letters, the most exclusive of the fashionable world, and also by royalty. But all this splendour faded away when Cosway took up the cause of the Revolutionists in France. His friends turned their backs on him, his wife’s health failed, their only child died, and the last years of their married life were spent in a dull house in the Edgeware Road, London. After her husband’s death, Mrs. Cosway went back to her native country.

In the closing years of the eighteenth century there were many landscape painters among women, but in the early part of the nineteenth century they declined, very few exhibiting at the Royal Academy. It was, however, a flourishing period for portrait painters. “Never before or since have so many lady artists obtained such honours in a most difficult branch.”[61] Mrs. Carpenter, who lived between 1793 and 1877, was pre-eminent among these, and was a regular exhibitor at the Academy from 1814 to 1866. Mrs. James Robertson was a clever miniature painter, and was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. She was also an exhibitor at the Royal Academy during the same period as Mrs. Carpenter.

It was not an easy matter at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present to obtain instruction in miniature painting, and the women who excelled did so entirely by their own laborious efforts. Later on this branch of the art fell into desuetude. Flower and fruit painting came much into vogue early in the century. It is a curious thing that the amateurs of art should have fallen so much into the background in the first half of this century. In the last decade of the eighteenth century the amateurs were rather distinguished. There were numbers of “honorary exhibitors” between 1793 and 1800 at the Royal Academy, who seem to have been so described because they were amateurs like Miss Spilsbury, Miss Serres, and other ladies.

It seems strange that in music women have shown so little creative power. They have proved first-class executants, but as composers they have not attempted any great flights. With a few exceptions their productions have been confined to the lighter kinds of music, to songs and the simpler class of pianoforte works. They have rarely attempted orchestral pieces or the more elaborate forms of vocal composition. Symphonies, oratorios, operas, or even cantatas have very seldom issued from the pen of a woman. It is not, however, impossible that creative capacity may have existed in many women without finding direct expression or acknowledgment. Mendelssohn narrates how he was summoned to play before the Queen, who wished that he should accompany her in one of his compositions. He asked Her Majesty to select her favourite song, and when the Queen had chosen what she called quite the best, Mendelssohn was obliged to confess that the song was his sister’s work, not his own. The elder Mendelssohn would probably have seen more impropriety in his daughter’s name appearing in print than in his son taking credit for what he had not composed. Just as Caroline Herschell’s large share in her brother’s astronomic labours and Fanny Mendelssohn’s authorship were not acknowledged, so is it impossible to say that musical genius may not have been the heritage of some among the women of famous composers’ families.

But women have always delighted in playing and singing, even in those early periods of our history when music in this country was chiefly a thing of ear and memory, there being hardly any musical literature and very few professional instructors. In the middle ages, throughout the Renaissance period, and down to the last century, music was part of polite education for both sexes. At the present day a gentleman may go comfortably through life with no more, if as much, knowledge of music as a Board School child, and not be accused of lack of breeding. For a woman in the middle and upper ranks, music has remained an essential feature of education. Indeed, it has been made far too much of, and many years are often wasted in attaining a very moderate degree of executive skill, with little pleasure or profit, by those who have not sufficient natural ability to make prolonged study useful.

In the present century the musical education of women has made great strides. Every opportunity has been taken for latent talent to develop by means of the best instruction. The academies and schools of music have raised the standard of private teaching, besides directly educating vast numbers of students. The result is an ever-increasing number of really able performers and teachers, but very few composers. To the executive power of women there is no limit beyond that of the instrument. With regard to vocalism, there is the barrier of climate. We are not a nation of vocalists, and though there is a very large amount of respectable talent it is seldom that England produces a great singer.

One proof of the advanced musical education of women is to be found in their frequent presence as performers in high-class orchestras. It used to be a rare thing to see a woman appear on a concert platform in any capacity but that of vocalist or pianoforte player. Now she takes her place quite naturally among the “strings.” To play in concerted music means a wider training, and one that has only become possible to women in recent times.

The English have always been a music-loving nation. The records of early times show in what esteem music was held. The harp was the favourite instrument of our forefathers. The possession of a harp was one of the three things necessary to a gentleman or a freeman in Wales, and slaves were not permitted to play on it. A gentleman’s harp was never seized for debt, because he would then have been degraded to the rank of a slave. The minstrel was as essential to English social life in the middle ages as the cook or the henchman. A writer in the thirteenth century speaks of the good singers in England at the court of Henry II. Erasmus in the sixteenth century remarks of the English:--

“They challenge the prerogative of having the most handsome women, of keeping the best table, and being most accomplished in the skill of music of any people.”

At that time everybody, high or low, delighted in music. It was as much a part of education as reading and writing, and there was never a festival or entertainment of any kind without music. Curiously enough, ladies then played the bass viol, thought by some to be an “unmannerly instrument for a woman.” The virginal, or as it is generally called the virginals, a sort of pianoforte; the cittern and the gittern, which were varieties of the lute and the guitar, were the instruments most in use by gentlewomen.[62] The virginal is said to have received its name from being played by young girls, or, according to some authorities, because it was an instrument used by the nuns in their hymns to the Virgin. It was expected of every lady that she must be able--

“to play upon the virginals, lute, and cittern; and to read prick song (_i.e._ music written or pricked down) _at first sight_.”

So common was the lute that lute-strings were much in vogue as new year’s gifts to ladies. Queen Elizabeth, as is well known, was a skilful performer on the lute and virginals, and her “Virginal Book” is frequently referred to in musical works. “Lady Nevill’s Virginal Book” is another famous collection of sixteenth-century airs.

Queen Elizabeth gave great encouragement to sacred music, and issued express orders for the retention of the musical portion of the Church Service, and in her own chapel various instruments were used. She gave much offence to the stricter Protestants by her patronage of music.

All through the Tudor period England was merry with music, but with the triumph of the Puritans, in the seventeenth century, all this was changed. Music was denounced as corrupting and mischievous, like the other arts, and every effort made to prevent the people’s enjoyment of it, either in their own homes or in the religious services. Under James I. there had been little encouragement given to music, and when the Civil War came, and the Commonwealth, with its austere doctrines, was established, there was no chance for musicians. The fury of the Puritans against church music was shown in acts of violence. The organ of Westminster Abbey was broken down, and the pipes pawned for ale by roistering republicans. Ordinances were passed in 1644 for--

“the speedy demolishing of all organs and all matters of superstitions, monuments in all Cathedral or Collegiate or Parish Churches and Chapels throughout the Kingdom.”

And even before then havoc had been made of the church organs. Of the court players no one knows--they disappeared. But after the Restoration the Royal Chapel Choir was re-formed with some difficulty, for both teachers and performers had been scattered to the four winds. Then followed the age of Purcell, Humphrey, Wise, and Blow.

Throughout the seventeenth century, and down to the time of the second George, ladies continued to play on the virginals and lute, and to practise reading music at sight.

“Part of a gentlewoman’s bringing up is to sing, dance, play on the lute, or some such instrument, before she can say her _Pater Noster_ or ten commandments: ’tis the next way their parents think to get them husbands, they are compelled to learn.”

And just as Englishwomen of the present day are apt to lay aside their accomplishments after marriage, so, in the seventeenth century,

“they that being maids took so much pains to sing, play, and dance, with such cost and charge to their parents to get these graceful qualities, now being married, will scarce touch an instrument, they care not for it.”

The very maidservants at that period understood music. Pepys speaks of a servant whom he and his wife took into their household, a poor, wretched girl, without proper clothing, but with a decided talent for singing, apparent even through a voice described by the diarist as furred for want of use. This was the fourth maid in the course of less than ten years whom Pepys praises for musical ability; and there was also the boy who was in the habit of playing his lute in bed at four in the morning, a habit that most employers would object to, but Pepys saw in it only occasion for praise.

The seventeenth century marks an era in our musical history, because it witnessed the first attempts at opera by English composers. Matthew Lock’s opera, _Psyche_, produced in 1673, was the first English composition of this class. Henry Purcell, when he was only about seventeen, wrote _Dido and Æneas_. It was performed in 1677. Now, as Madame Raymond Ritter has said--

“Woman’s practical career as a musician only began with the invention of the opera about 1600. It was not until her superiority as an actress and a singer had been undeniably and triumphantly established on the stage that she was allowed to resume her musical participation in Church services.”[63]

Purcell’s opera had a very modest introduction to the world. It was performed at a girl’s boarding-school, kept in Leicester Fields by Mr. James Priest, a famous dancing-master, who persuaded young Purcell to write the music to the libretto of the drama which had been composed by one Tate at his suggestion. Mr. Priest desired to have something for his pupils to perform, and the exhibition came off with great _éclat_ in the presence of the pupils’ parents and friends.

It is a little surprising that any one should have been found daring enough to carry out so startling an idea at a girls’ school, and it seems odd that Mr. Priest should have been the proprietor of such an establishment.

The musical history of England affords little that is encouraging to dwell upon from the middle of the seventeenth century. A great many foreign artists visited this country, but native talent was at a very low ebb. There were no English composers of any note after Purcell, who died at thirty-seven years of age, just when Italian opera was beginning to take root in England.

PERIOD III.

_LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY._