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The Printing of William Holder's ‘Principles of Harmony’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1974

H. Edmund Poole
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Extract

During the final editing and printing of his Treatise of the Natural Grounds and Principles of Harmony (1694) William Holder was engaged in a protracted correspondence. The letters to Holder were kept together and formed part of the founding collections of the British Museum, but they seem to have been little used. This neglect may represent the true verdict of history upon their merit, or it may be that they have never attracted the attention of a professional student of harmony qualified to assess their value. I am not such a one, and though, as it were by chance, I may turn over a little new grist for specialists, my set purpose is to describe the chances and changes through which one manuscript passed at the hands of its editor, publisher and printer during its transformation into a book at the end of the seventeenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 101 , 1974 , pp. 31 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 British Library, Sloane 1388, ff. 56–1080. See Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, London, 1906–9, iii. 320.Google Scholar

2 This appears to be the first record of Heptinstall's address. According to John Strype's edition (1720) of John Stow's Survey of London, p. 274, Sir Baptist Hicks (1551–1629, first Viscount Campden) ‘mercer, sometime living in Cheapside built at his own charge, in St. John's Street, a shire House for the Justices of Middlesex to hold their sessions at which cost him goo£ or thereabouts’. According to the Dictionary of Notional Biography, the Hall was opened on 13 January 1611/12 and was in occupation until 1778. John Rocque's Survey of London (1746) shows Hicks Hall at the corner of St John's Street and St. John's Lane, near Smithfield.Google Scholar

3 Mr. David Scott kindly drew the writer's attention to a passage and footnote in Edward J. Dent, Foundations of English Opera, London, 1928, p. 138, where Sigr Pedro is identified as Pietro Reggio, described by Pepys (22 July 1664) as ‘a slovenly and ugly fellow … who sings Italian songs to the theorbo most neatly’. In 1680 he published 46 of his songs, engraved throughout Songs set by Signer Pietro Reggio UT RElevet MIserum FAtum SOLitosq LAborts AEm; Sit dulcis MUSICA noster Amor. The collection ‘newly reprinted’ was advertised in The London Gazette of 27 October 1962Google Scholar

4 The situation was even more complicated. The imprint of the Royal Society copy reads: ‘London, Printed by J. Heptinstall for the Author, and sold by John Carr; at the Middle-Temple-Gate, in Fleet-street, 1694’. The British Library copy has two title pages. One reads: ‘London, Printed by J. Heptinstall, for John Carr, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, in Fleet-street, 1694’. The other reads: ‘London, Printed by J. Heptinstall, and sold by J. Carr at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleet-street, B. Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons in Cornhill, W. Hensman, at the Kings-Head in Westminster-Hall, and L. Meredith at the Star in St Paul's Church-Yard. 1694’.Google Scholar

5 The Advertisement appeared in No. 2931 of The London Gazette dated 11–14 December. Holder's book was announced together with Comes Amoris: Or, The Companion of Love Being a choice collection of the newest Songs now in use … ‘Both sold by John Carr at his shop at the Middle Temple Gate in Fleet Street’.Google Scholar

6 The flavour of the occasion is evoked by a letter to Holder from John Aubrey (f. 149, dated 2 January 1693/4): ‘Reverend Sir: I reed 1£ 7s 6d of Mr. Holder & delivered 10 shillings into Mrs. Tollat's hands, who prudently advised to have it spent at her house. She provided a couple of as good fowles as ever I did eate and had the rest in wine (very good) of his providing. We dranke yr good Health, and were very (ingeniously) merry: and had no jingle jangle of the Barr, or prophane hoarse swearers to interrupt or disturb the sacrifice of your Free will offering, which was celebrated on Saturday night 30 Der. Where were Mr. A. Deacon Baynard & old Jack Carre …’.Google Scholar

7 The following passage occurs in a letter (f. 169) dated 27 March 1694 from Baynard to Holder dealing with the manuscript of the Discourse concerning Time: ‘I went this morning early to the Printer with the Review of the 3d sheet, and he will not fail to send the three by Thursday's Coach …” A ‘review’ or ‘revise’ was a proof pulled as a demonstration that corrections marked on earlier proofs had been made properly.Google Scholar

8 The writer is much indebted to the Librarian of the Royal Society, Mr. N. H. Robinson, who not only made available for study under ideal conditions the copy of The Principles of Harmony that Holder presented to the Society on publication, with all the errata corrected in Baynard's hand, but also pointed the way to useful additional biographical and bibliographical references.Google Scholar