"These did frequent the Weekly Meetings, and _by the help of public Masters of Musick_, who were mixed with them, they were much improved."
There seems to have been little that was not pure enjoyment in these meetings. Only two persons out of the thirty-two mentioned seem to have had any undesirable quality--viz., Mr Low, organist of Christ Church, who was "a _proud_ man," and "could not endure any common Musitian to come to the meeting;" and "Nathan. Crew, M.A., Fellow of Linc. Coll., a Violinist and Violist, _but alwaies played out of Tune_." This last gentleman was afterwards Bishop of Durham.
Thus we find that in the 16th and 17th centuries a practical acquaintance with music was a regular part of the education of both sovereign, gentlemen of rank, and the higher middle class.
We find Henry VIII. composing church music, and at the same time enjoying himself singing in the three-part canon composed by his friend, a gentleman of rank.
We find that a Fellow of Trinity at the same time was expected to sing "his part" in chapel as a matter of course. We find Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth to have all been capable players on lute or virginals. We find that it was the merest qualification that an Elizabethan bishop should be able to sing well; and that young University gentlemen of birth thought it nothing out of the way to learn all the mysteries of both prick-song (a _written_ part) and descant (an _extempore_ counterpoint), and to solace their weary hours by singing "in parts."
Immediately after Shakespeare's time, we find a courtier of James I., and the ill-fated Prince Charles himself, both enthusiasts in both church and chamber music; and lastly, two years after the Regicide, we find the University of Oxford to have been a perfect hotbed of musical cultivation. Men who afterwards became Bishops, Archdeacons, Prebendaries, besides sixteen Fellows of Colleges, and sundry gentlemen of family, were not ashamed to practise chamber music and singing to an extent which really has no parallel whatever nowadays.
There is plenty of evidence, though more indirect in kind, that the lower classes were as enthusiastic about music as the higher. A large number of passages in contemporary authors shows clearly that singing in parts (especially of "catches") was a common amusement with blacksmiths, colliers, cloth-workers, cobblers, tinkers, watchmen, country parsons, and soldiers.