2 ai S. IX. May 5. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



337 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 5. 1800. 



N°. 227.— CONTENTS. 



NOTES : — Milton's Sonnet to Henry Lawes, 337 — Glean- 

 ings from the Records of the Treasury, No. 3., 338 — Ma- 

 thematical Bibliography, 339. 



Misoe Notes : —Title of Marquis — Origin of the Buona- 

 parte Family — " Erase " and " Cancel " — Races by Run- 

 ning Footmen, 341. 



QUERIES: — The Livery Collar of Scotland, 341 — Allusion 

 in the "Rolliad" — Fitzgibbon's "Irish Dictionary' — . 

 Church Towers: their Origin and Early Use— The Ro- 

 bertons ofBedlay, near Glasgow — Map of Roman Britain 



— Davies of Llandovery — Punishments, Ancient and 

 Modern— "The Portreature of Dalila " — Rapin and 

 Tindal's " Historv of England " — " The Happy Way " — 

 " Pountefreit," &c. — Weather Glasses — St. Dunstau's 

 School — Atter and Alii, their Derivation — " Man to the 

 Plough," &e. — Manners of the last Century — A Female 

 Cornet — Hereditary Alias : Dr. Johnson's Nurse, &c, 342. 



Qtjebies with Answees : — " The Widow of the Wood," 

 Ac — John Maxwell — Bula de la Cruzada — " Knap," its 

 Meaning-? — Coronation, when First Introduced, 345. 



REPLIES : — The Percy Library, 346— Knox Family, 347 — 

 Boiled, 349 — Dedications to the Deity , 350 — The Delphic 

 Classics, 351 — Fletcher Family — Epitaph in Memory of a 

 Spaniard— Mr. Bright and the British Lion — Essay on 

 Taste: Faux — Pye Wype — Peter Huguetan, Lord of 

 Vrijhoeven — Clerical M.P.'s— The Termination " th "— 

 Durance Vile— Rev. F. J. H. Rankin — Sir Robert le Grys 



— Thomas Houston — Sea Breaches on the Norfolk Coast 



— "This day eight days" — Age of the Horse— Sarah 

 Duchess of Somerset — Family of Havard — Brighton Pa- 

 vilion—The Letter "w" — Arms of Border Families of 

 Armstrong and Elliot — Pigtails — Refreshment for Clergy- 

 men — French Church in London, &c, 352. 



fiatt*. 



MILTON'S SONNET TO HENRY LAWES. 



In every edition of Milton's Poems which has 

 fallen under my notice — I might perhaps, with- 

 out much fear of error, say, in every edition — 

 the sonnet commencing — 



" Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song," 



is described as addressed to Lawes " on the pub- 

 lishing his Airs; " and this statement rests on no 

 less an authority than that of the poet himself; 

 for in a volume preserved in the library of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, containing much of Milton's 

 poetry in his autograph, there are (as we are in- 

 formed by Dr. Todd), three copies of this sonnet, 

 two in Milton's handwriting, and the third in that 

 of another man, the title being, " To my friend 

 Mr. Hen. Lawes, feb. 9. 1645. On the publishing 

 of his Aires." 



Yet, notwithstanding this apparently conclu- 

 sive evidence, there arc circumstances which, at 

 first sight, seem calculated to raise a doubt as to 

 the sonnet having really been written on the 

 hi ioned in the title. 

 for as is known, Henry Lawes did not pub- 

 lish any work bearing the title of " Airs " earlier 

 than 1658, in which ye;ir he brought out Ayres 

 and Dialogues for One, Two, and Three Voyces. 

 By Henry Laives. The First Bookc. (Small 



folio, with portrait of the composer by Faithorne 

 on the title-page.) To this publication Lawes 

 says, in the preface, he was impelled in conse- 

 quence of some twenty of his songs having then 

 lately been printed in a book without his know- 

 ledge. (The book to which he alludes appeared 

 in 1652 under the title of Select Musicall Ayres 

 and Dialogues. It was put forth by John Playford, 

 and contained, besides Lawes' s songs, compositions 

 by John Wilson, Mus. Doc. ; Charles Colman, Mus. 

 Doc. ; William Webb, Robert Johnson, Nicholas 

 Laneare, John Taylor, and Mr. Caasar. Enlarged 

 editions of it appeared in 1653 and 1659.) Lawes' s 

 first book of Ayres was followed by a second in 

 1655, and a third in 1658. To the first book 

 were prefixed verses by Waller, Edward and 

 John Phillips (Milton's nephews), John Cobb, 

 Francis Finch, William Barker, T. Norton, and 

 John Carwarden ; to the second, similar compo- 

 sitions by Katherine Philips (" the matchless 

 Orinda"), Mary Knight (one of the composer's 

 pupils), Dr. John Wilson, Dr. Charles Colman, 

 and John Berkenhead ; the third being ushered 

 in by a poem of about 150 lines by Horatio 

 Moore. But in neither of the three books did 

 Milton's sonnet appear. This, however, was not 

 because it had been forgotten or was unvalued by 

 the man to whom it was inscribed, but in all pro- 

 bability from the circumstance that in 1648 Henry 

 Lawes had published Choice Psalmes put into 

 Musick for Three Voices .... Composed 

 by Henry and William Lawes, Brothers ; amongst 

 the commendatory verses prefixed to which is the 

 sonnet under consideration, bearing the simple 

 inscription " To my friend, Mr. Henry Lawes." 



Both Warton and Todd, and possibly other an- 

 notators of Milton, have noticed the publication 

 of the sonnet in the Choice Psalmes, but neither 

 makes any observation on its absence from the 

 Ayres and Dialogues. I trust I may therefore be 

 pardoned for inviting attention to it. 



There is every reason for believing that Milton, 

 not only from early training, but from the prac- 

 tice of his riper years, was too good a musician to 

 confound the distinction between Psalms and 

 Airs. We may therefore assume that the sonnet 

 was in reality written for the purpose mentioned 

 by the poet, viz. to be employed on the publica- 

 tion of some of Lawes's Airs. 



This assumption seems also supported by a note 

 in the margin of the copy of the sonnet as printed 

 in the Choice Psalmes, where the expression in the 

 eleventh line — 



" That tun'st their happiest lines in hymne or story," 

 is explained as alluding to "The story of Ariadne 

 set by him [Lawes] to musick." Now " The 

 Story of Theseus and Ariadne " is the first piece 

 in the first book of Ayres, and is especially noticed 

 by the writers of more than one of the commenda- 

 tory verses prefixed thereto. 



