* * * * *
Minor Notes.
_The Music in Middleton's Tragi-Comedy of the "Witch."_--Joseph Ritson, in
a letter addressed to J. C. Walker (July, 1797), printed in Pickering's
edition of Ritson's _Letters_ (vol. ii. p. 156.) has the following
passage:--
"It may be to your purpose, at the same time, to know that the songs in
Middleton's _Witch_, which appear also to have been introduced in
_Macbeth_, beginning, 'Hecate, Hecate, come away,' and 'Black spirits
and white,' have (as I am informed) been lately discovered in MS. with
the complete harmony, as performed at the original representation of
these plays. You will find the words in a note to the late editions of
Shakspeare; and I shall, probably, one of these days, obtain a sight of
the musick."
The MS. here mentioned was in the collection of the late Mr. J. Stafford
Smith, one of the Organists of the Chapel Royal. At the sale of this
gentleman's valuable library it passed, with many other treasures of a
similar nature, into my possession, where it now remains.