ore indirect in kind, that the
lower classes were as enthusiastic about music as the higher. A large
number of passages in contemporary authors shows clearly that singing
in parts (especially of "catches") was a common amusement with
blacksmiths, colliers, cloth-workers, cobblers, tinkers, watchmen,
country parsons, and soldiers.

In _Damon and Pithias_, 1565, Grimme, the _collier_, sings "a bussing
[buzzing] base," and two of his friends, Jack and Will, "quiddel upon
it," _i.e._, they sing the tune and words, while he buzzes the burden.

Peele's _Old Wives Tale_, 1595, says, "This _smith_ leads a life as
merry as a king; Sirrah Frolic, I am sure you are not without some
_round_ or other; no doubt but Clunch [the smith] can _bear his
part_."

Beaumont and Fletcher's _Coxcomb_ has

"Where were the _watch_ the while? good sober gentlemen,
They were, like careful members of the city,
Drawing in diligent ale, and _singing catches_."

Also in B. and F.'s _Faithful Friends_--

"_Bell._--Shall's have a _catch_, my hearts?

_Calve._--Aye, good lieutenant.

_Black._--Methinks a _soldier_[3] should sing nothing else;
_catch, that catch may_ is all our life, you know."

[Footnote 3: Drayton (James I.'s reign) in his "Battle of Agincourt,"
l. 1199, has--"The common Souldiers free-mens _catches_ sing"--of the
French before the battle (_free_men is a corruption of _three_men).]

[In _Bonduca_, a play of B. and F's., altered for operatic setting by
Purcell in 1695, there is a catch in three parts, sung by the Roman
soldiers.]

In Sir William Davenant's (Davenant flourished 1635) comedy _The
Wits_, Snore, one of the characters, says--

"It must be late, for gossip Nock, the _nailman_,
Had catechized his maids, and _sung three catches
And a song_, ere we set forth."

Samuel Harsnet, in his _Declaration of Egregious Impostures_, 1603,
mentions a 'merry catch,' 'Now God be with old Simeon' (for which see
Rimbault's Rounds, Canons, and Catches of England), which he says was
sung by _tinkers_ 'as they sit by the fire, with a pot of good ale
between their legs.'

And in _The Merry Devill of Edmonton_, 1631, there is a comical story
of how Smug _the miller_ was _singing a catch_ with the _merry Parson_
in an alehouse, and how they 'tost' the words "_I'll ty my mare in thy
ground_," 'so long to and fro,' that Smug forgot he was singing a
catch, and began to quarrel with the P