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It is to be feared that this Dowlande, too tightly strung, is beginning to have no religion in particular-will not commit himself definitely with either Scudamore or Grey. Since those buoyant days in 1582 or 1583 when he denounced persecution for religion and allowed even the Queen to know of his conversion to Catholicism, there has been need to learn prudence. Lord Grey can tell his honour of the resolve to suffer martyrdom in Rome rather than not report any practices against her Majesty or the State. But Grey is still in Italy; has, in fact, returned to Florence from Siena, and in October writes to John Coke-afterwards Sir John and Secretary of State to Charles I.—a letter which shows what sort of a man Grey was for fashionable culture, and how he could estimate the value of a younger son's brains. And these were pleasant days in Florence and Siena, where the sun was bright, and young men of birth and spirit could laugh and chat with a ready and cheerful' artist like Dowlande-days to be looked back to in those eleven years of confinement in the Tower which ended the days of the last of the Greys de Wilton. For, surely, this Lord Grey is son to that Viceroy of Ireland, dead since 1593, whose secretary was Edmund Spenser. Lord Grey is a Puritan, attached to Cecil, yet he and his friends, Coke probably one of them, ran away from Florence rather than meet Scudamore. But here is Grey's letter to Coke, as given in vol. i. of the Earl Cowper MSS. :

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'October 4. Florence. Thomas Lord Grey de Wilton, "Al molto mage Sign" e patron mio ossmo il Sig" Giovanni Coke, Inglese, dirimpetto alla Sapienza in Sienna." Asks delivery of a letter to Friar Battista, as to an Euclid in Greek and Latin. "The kindness wherewith you have already favoured me, and the virtues which I see clearly shining in you are of such force that I shall ever hold myself very far engaged heartily to love and exceedingly to honour them in you. I pray you let us by mutual letters acquaint one the other with his occurrences both foreign and domestical." Coke had been a year or more in Germany and Italy. Such was the sort of men with whom Dowlande chanced to be dining, and whom he warned so that they left Florence in a hurry. The fact marks the social status of a lutenist and singer so talented as he. Were not actors of equal reputation ?

The Mr. (afterwards Sir) Josias Bodley referred to below was brother to Thomas, of Oxford Library fame; he had been travel

ling into Poland, it is thought, after an education in Germany, Switzerland, and England. Josias was of jovial disposition, loving wine and tobacco; thought it good for one's wits to be fuddled now and again; but for religion, a Puritan.

This Friar Baylie, before named,' writes Dowlande, ' delivered me a letter which I have here sent unto your honour, which letter I brake open before Mr. Josias Bodly, and showed what was written in it to him and divers other.'

A musician, suspected at home, and longing to get back to his wife and children, needs a good witness when he opens a letter from a seminary priest, especially if it chance to be addressed to a personage so well known to Cecil's spies as Nicholas Fitzherbert, Cardinal Allen's servant,' a man of influence at Rome and among all English Catholic refugees, as he had been with the Cardinal, now lately dead-dead in time to escape the intended assassin, said to have been sent by Cecil, and burned as a heretic at Rome in June last. Perhaps this burning made Dowlande feel that the Holy City might be unhealthy, even though good musicians made much money there. But here is Scudamore's letter, written at Florence, July 7th, 1595, to Nicholas Fitzherbert; the digest that of the Record Office editor:

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Begs him to show what favour he can to their countryman Mr. Douland, whose "exquisiteness upon the lute” and “cunning in musick" will have come to his ears long ago. Favour may shown to him safely, though he comes from England; for, "I do assure you in verbo sacerdotis, that he is no meddler but rather inclined to the good, and only for the fame of Lucca Emorentiana and love of music hath undertaken this voyage." Adequate proof, this, of Dowlande's innocence of conspiracy; it supports his version of the interview with Scudamore-so far, at least, as to show that he had been very guarded, not declaring his Catholicism with the exuberance of a devout pilgrim bent upon reaching Rome. 'Rather inclined to the good,' that is all; yet a man who will not betray confidences-unless, one may add, he is anxious to see London and his poor wife again, and to rub off all the pitch which prevents his delicate fingers from charming Elizabeth's ear with their nimble play upon his frets. Wishes to let Cecil, and possibly the Queen, know how desirous the great people at Rome are to hear his lute and voice. Why should talents be hid?

'After this, this Friar Bayly'-no time to waste upon thought as to how the name should be spelled—' told me he had received

letters from Rome to hasten me forward, and told me that my discontentment was known at Rome '-see what a tender interest is taken in one outside London !-and that I should have a large pension of the Pope, and that his Holiness and all the Cardinals would make wonderful much of me. Thereupon I told him of my wife and children'-one of them, Robert, to be a lute-player like his father- how to get them to me. Whereunto he told me that I should have acquaintance with such as should bring them over, if she had any willingness, or else they would lose their lives; for there came those into England for such purposes; for, quoth he, Mr. Skidmore brought out of England at his last being there xvij persons, both men and women '-among them, as Cecil knows, two sisters of Mr. William Wiseman, of Braddocks, now in the Wood Street Compter, charged, together with his mother, as a harbourer of Jesuits-' for which the Bishop weeps when he sees him for joy.'

Dowlande also could weep, to think he is away from the delights of London town; for he proceeds:

'After my departure I called to mind our conference, and got me by myself, and wept heartily to see my fortune so hard that I should become servant to the greatest enemy of my prince, country, wife, children, and friends, for want. And to make me like themselves. God knoweth I never loved treason nor treachery, nor never knew of any, nor never heard any mass in England, which I find is great abuse of the people, for, on my soul, I understand it not.'

How can a poor music-player, though the best of his day on the lute, comprehend mysteries as to which the wisest in Europe may not agree? Let them decide it, before he is asked to believe; and if they cannot, perhaps it will be no loss hereafter, and undoubtedly present gain, to go to church like other loyal people in England. Catholic or Protestant, what does it matter? Let them all learn music, harmony, and then this absurd quarrelling, and burning, and hanging can be done away with. Religion, after all, depends on where one is born. What is important is that John Dowlande shall not be wandering in Germany and Italy while his wife and children go about the Strand or Ludgate Hill disconsolate.

'Wherefore I have reformed myself to live according to her Majesty's laws, as I was born under her Highness, and that, most humbly, I do crave pardon, protesting if there were any ability in

me I would be most ready to make amends. At Bolona Í met with ij men, the one named Pierce, an Irishman, the other named Dracot. They are gone, both, to Rome. In Venice I heard an Italian say '-for, of course, he had been long enough there to learn the tongue-'that he marvelled that King Philip had never a good friend in England, that with his dagger would despatch the Queen's Majesty; "but," said he, "God suffers her in the end to give her the greater overthrow."

Singularly unfortunate, is it not, for a loyal subject to find his way into such scoundrelly company? Unbearable, wellnigh, when one thinks of how, if merit were properly encouraged, one would be prospering among one's own kindred. Perdition on the wicked people who instil pernicious doctrines into a young man's mind! They would be guilty of any malpractices, though we thought it not as we lingered with that Scudamore at the door of his lodgings. So here goes for a fine outburst of loyal indignation that must surely soften the little man's heart, and make him again speak with the Queen for a lute-player without equal.

Right honourable, this have I written that her Majesty may know the villany of these most wicked priests and Jesuits and to beware of them. I thank God I have both forsaken them and their religion, which tendeth to nothing but destruction. Thus I beseech God, night and day, to bless and defend the Queen's Majesty, and to confound all her enemies, and to preserve your honour and all the rest of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council. I think that Skidmore and the other priests are all in England; for he staid not at Florence, as he said he would to me, and Friar Baylie told me that he was gone into France to study the law. At Venice and all along as I come into Germany [they] say that the King of Spain is making great preparation to come for England this next summer, where, if it pleased your honour to advise me, by my poor wife, I would most willingly lose my life against them. Most humbly beseeching your honour to pardon my ill writing, and worse inditing, and to think that I desire to serve my country and hope to hear of your good opinion of me.'

And so, twanging his finest chords, and coming back to a restatement of his earliest motive, Dowlande makes his bow. There was pathos in him and discrimination; a man who had watched his audience, and knew where to sing pianissimo and where to work up a crescendo, and always with an eye to what will interest. Not such stuff as martyrs are made of. Once he thought he was;

bravely left the Court religion, joined hands with those who suffered for religion, and, heart and soul filled with generous enthusiasm, praised divine constancy in death. But the martyrdom awaiting him could not stimulate the artistic sensibility. What glory is there in being-passed by? The pain, when one has 'poor wife and children' to consider-who knows? they may think in the hearts of them, 'This man is but second at the best,' when the fault is not his-is severe, and not soon ended. Only the strong can bear such inglorious martyrdom; the world knows not, perhaps may never know, that it is endured. Protestant or Catholic? What matters which? May not a lutenist trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill,' and, thus trusting, cease to trouble about doctrines concerning which the wisest men write libraries on either side?

Yes, this Dowlande had learned much and lost much since those days in Paris. His writing is not that of a strong man ; the sentences long drawn out with the aid of 'ands,' not because of fulness of thought that must be compressed into one sentence. To compare his with Ben Jonson's magnificent prose, or Spenser's, or Bacon's, or that of any famous writer, is out of the question. But he gives peeps into the life of his age that one looks for vainly in most histories, and shows pretty clearly the social standing of a popular musician. Ben Jonson, of course, was on terms of intimacy with men and women who shone in the English world of fashion, and certain it is that, like the later Johnson, he would be treated with respect wherever he went. The way Edinburgh, through its Corporation, entertained him is proof of this. But Dowlande's case and that of Robert Browne, 'gentleman,' seem to show that performers for the artistic entertainment of educated people had positions accorded them no less elevated than have the musician and actor of our day.

Did Dowlande's appeal to Cecil bring him leave to return home? Probably so; for, as has been seen, he was publishing music in London in 1597, and Barnefield's sonnet appeared in 1598, though, of course, this may have been written earlier, especially as it refers to Spenser also. But the Queen's disfavour was not changed, or he would hardly have gone to Denmark. And though Dowlande was not the man to engage in conspiracies, it cannot be said that the authorities had no reason for looking upon him with suspicion.

J. S. RAGLAND PHILLIPS.

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