It may be at once assumed that if they were able to evade the hands of Elizabeth, they were little likely to escape those of Cromwell, who may be said to have, at last, cleared the country of what had become a positive menace to the security of life, since under the guise of wandering minstrels, highwaymen and other criminals had long been wont to carry on their occupations with comparative immunity. The age of Queen Elizabeth was one of transition, the Commonwealth marked the birth of the new era, and with it the final disappearance of the picturesque, even if somewhat depraved, English troubadour. FOOTNOTES: [1] A country that has taken its music at the hands of the foreigner for three centuries can scarcely be called musical. [2] In its original meaning, the term implied a cheerful and righteously joyful sense of living. Its popular significance after three centuries of Puritanism, rather inclines to alcoholic elation. [3] The leading note is a semi-tone lower than the keynote, and is essential to the modern scales, both major and minor. [4] More familiarly known as shawn. [5] "Short Apologies of the School of Abuse," London. CHAPTER II MUSIC BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION--(_continued_) Secular music dating from the thirteenth century--Origin lost in antiquity--Earliest specimens, dance music--Morris dance traced to Saxon times--Dancing always associated with singing--Gradual independence--Popularity of the month of May--The ballad and its antiquity--Popular specimens--"Parthenia," a collection of pieces for virginals--Life in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth--Its happiness--Authority of Professor Thorold Rogers--Great men living at the time--Pageantry and the Queen--Her love of dancing and music--Her sympathy with the joys of her people--Queen Elizabeth as a musician--Sir James Melvil and his adventure--The masque--Its origin--Popularity--James I. and art--Masque forerunner of opera--The madrigal, catch, round and glee--Shakespeare and the catch--"Sumer is icumen in," a wonderful specimen of ancient skill and genius--The "canon"--Instrumental music--Explanation of its late development--Purcell--Conclusion. Authentic examples of secular music in England date from the thirteenth century. It is not from this fact, though, one must suppose that it did not exist prior to that period. On the contrary, music of some kind or other has, doubtless, been a source of solace as well as amusement for untold years. For antiquity, vocal music stands pre-eminent. Ages must have passed before instrumental music came to any position of efficacy at all correlative with it. It must be remembered that music as we know it, is the gift that the ancient Church gave us centuries ago, and that the pangs of its birth were suffered in days of which all sense of record is lost.