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performers, and then the instrument should be lightly touched. 
There was once a dog who grew weaker and weaker every day, till 
at length he was forced to lean against a wall before he could 
bark. Well, the accompaniment is the wall: we all need our wall 
at times. Our farewell specimen of the Madrigal will be one by 
Ford, “Since first I saw your face.” 
During the earlier Stuart reigns music continued to flourish. 
The first Stuart king, “the wisest fool in Christendom,” inherited 
a share of the musical talent of his unfortunate but accomplished 
mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Charles I. was a great patron of 
music, and played well on the bass viol. One of his intimate 
friends was William Lawes, a composer of merit, who fell in the 
civil war, when the only arts in fashion were those of cant and of 
killing. Music in public was forbidden ; organs were demolished ; 
organists and choirs turned adrift. In Divine Service only unison 
singing was permitted—‘“ the minister or other fit person was to 
read the psalm line by line, before the singing thereof;’ andin New 
England, for more than one hundred years, they only allowed five 
lines. 
But even in these perilous times the voice of music, though 
subdued, was not entirely hushed. Music was diligently practised 
in private, and the compositions of Henry Lawes, a brother of 
William, were highly esteemed. Milton has immortalized him in 
a fine sonnet. Cromwell himself gave concerts in his own house, 
and paid £100 a year for the musical education of his daughter. 
Milton was an enthusiast in music, and none but a well-attuned 
ear could have poured forth the flood of harmony in prose and 
verse which he did. His father, as we have seen, was a composer 
of madrigals, and young Milton, almost from infancy, was able to 
read music. As he grew older, he became an accomplished 
player on the organ, and that instrument was one of his greatest 
delights when “ Nature at one entrance” was “quite shut out.” 
We now take the Ballad period, one of the most interesting— 
for the Ballad appeals to every ear and heart. We will begin with 
a specimen in which the “trimmer” so common in those days, is 
well pourtrayed—“ The Vicar of Bray.” It is familiar to us all, but 
