Mr. Purcell received his professional education in the school of a
choir; it is therefore not very surprising, that the bent of his
studies was towards church music. Services he seemed to neglect, and to
addict himself to the composition of anthems, a kind of music which, in
his time, the church stood greatly in need of.
The anthem, “_They that go down to the sea in ships_,” was composed by
him, on the following extraordinary occasion.
“King Charles II. had given orders for building a yatch, which, as
soon as it was finished, he named the Fubbs, in honour of the Duchess
of Portsmouth; who, we may suppose, was, in her person, rather full
and plump. Soon after the vessel was launched, the king made a party,
to sail in his yatch down the river, and round the Kentish coast: and,
to keep up the mirth and good humour of the company, Mr. Gostling,
was requested to be of the number. They had got as far as the North
Foreland, when a violent storm arose, in which the King and the Duke
of York were necessitated, in order to preserve the vessel, to hand
the sails, and work like common seamen; by good providence, however,
they escaped to land: but the distress they had been in, made such
an impression on the mind of Mr. Gostling as could never be effaced.
Struck with a just sense of the deliverance, and the horror of the
scene which he had lately viewed, upon his return to London, he
selected from the Psalms those passages which declare the wonders and
terrors of the deep, and gave them to Mr. Purcell, to compose as an
anthem, which he did; adapting it so peculiarly to the compass of Mr.
Gostling’s voice, which was a deep bass, that hardly any person but
himself was then, or has since, been able to sing it: but the king did
not live to hear it performed. This Anthem is taken from the 107th
Psalm, the first two verses of the Anthem are the 23d and 24th of the
Psalm. “They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy business in
great waters. These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in
the deep.”
Among the Letters of Tom Brown, from the Dead to the Living, is one
from Dr. Blow, to Mr. Purcell, in which it is humourously observed,
that persons of their profession are subject to an equal attraction
of the church and the play-house; and are, therefore, in a situation
resembling that of Mahomet, which is said to be suspended between
heaven and earth. This remark of Brown was truly applicable to Purcell;
and it is more than probable, his particular situation gave occasion to
it, for he was scarcely known to the world, before he became, in the
exercise of his profession, so equally divided between both, the church
and the theatre, that neither the church, the tragic, nor the comic
Muse, could call him her own.