In answer to an inquiry in _The Times_, respecting the author of “God
save the King,” the writers of several letters in that journal, during
the present month, concur in ascribing the air of the “national anthem”
to Dr. John Bull. This opinion results from recent researches, by the
curious in music, which have been published in elaborate forms.
Dr. John Bull was a celebrated musician, born about 1563, in
Somersetshire. His master in music was William Blitheman, organist of
the chapel royal to queen Elizabeth, in which capacity he was much
distinguished. Bull, on the death of his master in 1591, was appointed
his successor. In 1592 he was created doctor in the university of
Cambridge; and in 1596, at the recommendation of her majesty, he was
made professor of music to Gresham college, which situation he resigned
in 1607. During more than a year of his professorship, Mr. Thomas Bird,
son of the venerable William Bird, exercised the office of a substitute
to Dr. Bull, while he travelled on the continent for the recovery of his
health. After the decease of queen Elizabeth, Bull was appointed
chamber-musician to king James. In 1613, Dr. Bull finally quitted
England, and entered into the service of the archduke, in the
Netherlands. He afterwards seems to have settled at Lubec, from which
place many of his compositions, in the list published by Dr. Ward, are
dated; one of them so late as 1622, the supposed year of his decease.
Dr. Bull has been censured for quitting his establishment in England;
but it is probable that the increase of health and wealth was the cause
and consequence of his removal. He seems to have been praised at home
more than rewarded. The professorship of Gresham college was not then a
sinecure. His attendance on the chapel royal, for which he had 40_l._
per annum, and on the prince of Wales, at a similar salary, though
honourable, were not very lucrative appointments for the first performer
in the world, at a time when scholars were not so profitable as at
present, and there was no public _performance_ where this most wonderful
musician could display his abilities. A list of more than two hundred of
Dr. Bull’s compositions, vocal and instrumental, is inserted in his
life, the whole of which, when his biography was written in 1740, were
preserved in the collection of Dr. Pepusch. The chief part of these were
pieces for the organ and virginal.[57]
Anthony à Wood relates the following anecdote of this distinguished
musician, when he was abroad for the recovery of his health in 1601:--
“Dr. Bull hearing of a famous musician belonging to a certain cathedral
at St. Omer’s, he applied himself as a novice to him, to learn something
of his faculty, and to see and admire his works. This musician, after
some discourse had passed between them, conducted Bull to a vestry or
music-school joining to the cathedral, and showed to him a lesson or
song of forty parts, and then made a vaunting challenge to any person in
the world to add one more part to them, supposing it to be so complete
and full that it was impossible for any mortal man to correct or add to
it; Bull thereupon desiring the use of pen, ink, and ruled paper, such
as we call music paper, prayed the musician to lock him up in the said
school for two or three hours; which being done, not without great
disdain by the musician, Bull in that time, or less, added forty more
parts to the said lesson or song. The musician thereupon being called
in, he viewed it, tried it, and retried it; at length he burst out into
a great ecstasy, and swore by the great God, that he that added those
forty parts must either be the devil, or Dr. Bull, &c. Whereupon Bull
making himself known, the musician fell down and adored him. Afterwards
continuing there and in those parts for a time, he became so much
admired, that he was courted to accept of any place or preferment
suitable to his profession, either within the dominions of the emperor,
king of France, or Spain; but the tidings of these transactions coming
to the English court, queen Elizabeth commanded him home.”[58]
Dr. Burney disregards the preceding account as incredible; but Wood was
a most accurate writer: and Dr. Bull, besides being a great master, was
a lover of the difficulties in his science, and was therefore likely to
seek them with delight, and accomplish them in a time surprisingly short
to those who study melody rather than intricacy of composition.
It is related that in the reign of James I. “July the 16th, 1607, his
majesty and prince Henry, with many of the nobility, and other
honourable persons, dined at Merchant Taylors’ hall, it being the
election-day of their master and wardens; when the company’s roll being
offered to his majesty, he said he was already free of another company,
but that the prince should grace them with the acceptance of his
freedom, and that he would himself see when the garland was put on his
head, which was done accordingly. During their stay, they were
entertained with a great variety of music, both voices and instruments,
as likewise with several speeches. And, while the king sat at dinner,
Dr. Bull, who was free of that company, being in a cittizen’s gowne,
cappe, and hood, played most excellent melodie uppon a small payre of
organs, placed there for that purpose onely.”
From the only works of Dr. Bull in print, some lessons in the
“Parthenia--the first music that was ever printed for the virginals,” he
is deemed to have possessed a power of execution on the harpsichord far
beyond what is generally conceived of the masters of that time. As to
his lessons, they were, in the estimation of Dr. Pepusch, not only for
the harmony and contrivance, but for air and modulation, so excellent,
that he scrupled not to prefer them to those of Couperin, Scarlatti, and
others of the modern composers for the harpsichord.
Dr. Pepusch had in his collection a book of lessons very richly bound,
which had once been queen Elizabeth’s; in this were contained many
lessons of Bull, so very difficult, that hardly any master of the
doctor’s time was able to play them. It is well known, that Dr. Pepusch
married the famous opera singer, signora Margarita de L’Pine, who had a
very fine hand on the harpsichord: as soon as they were married, the
doctor inspired her with the same sentiments of Bull as he himself had
long entertained, and prevailed on her to practise his lessons; in which
she succeeded so well, as to excite the curiosity of numbers to resort
to his house at the corner of Bartlett’s-buildings, in Fetter-lane, to
hear her. There are no remaining evidences of her unwearied application,
in order to attain that degree of excellence which it is known she
arrived at; but the book itself is yet in being, which in some parts of
it is so discoloured by continual use, as to distinguish with the utmost
degree of certainty the very lessons with which she was most delighted.
One of them took up twenty minutes to go through it.[59]
Dr. Burney says, that Pepusch’s preference of Bull’s compositions to
those of Couperin and Scarlatti, rather proves that the doctor’s taste
was bad, than that Bull’s music was good; and he remarks, in reference
to some of them, “that they may be heard by a lover of music, with as
little emotion as the clapper of a mill, or the rumbling of a
post-chaise.” It is a misfortune to Dr. Bull’s fame, that he left little
evidence of his great powers, except the transcendantly magnificent air
of “God save the king.”
_February, 1827._
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