He tells of a gentleman, who, after dinner, was asked by his hostess to sing from the music she gave him. It was the custom in England to bring out the music books after dinner and for the guests to play and sing, as we wind up our graphophones and switch on the radio. The gentleman stammeringly declared that he could not sing at sight and “everyone began to wonder; yea, some whispered to others, demanding how he was brought up.” He was so ashamed of his ignorance that he immediately took music lessons to remedy his woeful lack of culture. This proves that musical education was not looked upon as a luxury but a necessity in the 17th century. Truly, it was a musical era, this time of Morley and Byrd! Fancy playing, while waiting for the barber, the viol, flute, lute, cittern, or virginal left for that purpose. Yet what would our dentist do today if he had to listen to a saxophone and jazz chorus from his waiting room? In those days, too, there was always a bass viol left in a drawing-room for the guest, to pass the time, waiting for the host to appear. Think of all the practising you could do waiting for the busy dentist or eternally late hostess! The children of people who were poor, were taught music to make them fit to be “servants, apprentices or husbandmen.” Laneham, a groom who had been brought up in the royal stable, was advanced to the post of guarding the door of the council chamber and this is how he described his qualifications for the job: “Sometimes I foot it with dancing; now with my gittern, and else my cittern, then at the virginals (ye know nothing comes amiss to me); then carol I up a song withal; that by-and-by they come flocking about me like bees to honey; and ever they cry, ‘Another, good Laneham, another!’” (From _The Story of Minstrelsy_ by Edmundstoune Duncan.) SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC This was the day in which Shakespeare lived, and from his plays we get a very good idea of the popular music of his time, for he used bits of folk songs and old ballads. _It was a Lover and his Lass_ from _As You Like It_ was set to music by Thomas Morley, and is one of the few songs written to Shakespeare’s words in his own day that has come down to us. In _Twelfth Night_ there is _O Mistress Mine_, _Hold thy Peace_, _Peg-a-Ramsey_, _O, London is a Fine Town_, _Three Merry Men be We_, and the Clown’s song: Hey! Robin, jolly Robin, Tell me how thy lady does, etc. In the _Winter’s Tale_, _As You Like It_, _The Tempest_, _Merchant of Venice_, _Hamlet_, _Othello_ are folk songs that are very well known and loved. Two songs from _The Tempest_, _Where the Bee Sucks_ and _Full Fathoms Five_, were set to music by a composer, Robert Johnson, who lived at the same time as Shakespeare, but was not as famous as Morley, who also lived then. _O, Willow, Willow_, sung by Desdemona in _Othello_ is one of the most beautiful and saddest folk songs we know.