ck to the
method of the minstrels. They disregarded rhythm more and more (as may
be seen if you compare Campion with Lawes), and sought only to make
the notes follow the accent of the poetry, thus converting music into
conventionally idealised speech or declamation. Lawes carried this
method as far as ever it has been, and probably can be, carried. When
Milton said,

"Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured notes
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent,"

he did not mean that Lawes was the first to bar his music, for music
had been barred long before Lawes. He meant that Lawes did not use the
poem as an excuse for a melody, but the melody as a means of
effectively declaiming the poet's verse. The poet (naturally) liked
this--hence Milton's compliments. It should be noted that many of the
musicians of this time were poets--of a sort--themselves, and wished
to make the most of their verses; so that it would be a mistake to
regard declamation as something forced by the poet, backed by popular
opinion, upon the musician. With Lawes, then, what we may call the
declamatory branch of the English school culminated. Except in his
avowedly declamatory passages, Purcell did not spin his web precisely
thus; but we shall presently see that his method was derived from the
declamatory method. Much remained to be done first. Lawes got rid of
the old scholasticism, now effete. But he never seemed quite sure that
his expression would come off. It is hard at this day to listen to his
music as Milton must have listened to it; but having done my best, I
am compelled to own that I find some of his songs without meaning or
comeliness, and must assume either that our ancestors of this period
had a sense which has been lost, or that the music played a less
important part compared with the poem than has been generally
supposed. Lawes lost rhythm, both as an element in beauty and a factor
in expression. Moreover, his harmonic resources were sadly limited,
for the old device of letting crossing parts clash in sweet discords
that resolved into as sweet or sweeter concords was denied him. What
would be called nowadays the new harmony, the new rhythm and the new
forms were developed during the Civil War and the Puritan reign. The
Puritans, loving music but detesting it in their churches, forced it
into purely secular channels; and we cannot say the result was bad,
for the result was Purcell. John Jenki