pression of
these songs either by voices or instruments, if there be any jar or
dissonance," we are not to blame the printer, who has been at the
greatest pains to secure accuracy. Then the composer makes a modest
appeal on behalf of himself, requesting those who find any fault in the
composition "either with courtesy to let the same be concealed," or "in
friendly sort" point out the errors, which shall be corrected in a
future impression. This is the proper manner of dealing between
gentlemen. His next publication was "Songs of Sundry Natures," 1589,
which was dedicated to Sir Henry Carey, who seems to have been as
staunch a patron of Byrd as his son, Sir George Carey, was of Dowland.
In 1611 appeared Byrd's last work, "Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets." The
composer must have taken to heart the precepts set down by Sir Edward
Dyer in "My mind to me a kingdom is," (printed in "Psalms, Sonnets, and
Songs") for his dedicatory epistle and his address to the reader show
him to have been a man who had laid up a large store of genial wisdom,
upon which he could draw freely in the closing days of an honourable
life. His earlier works had been well received, and in addressing "all
true lovers of music" he knew that he could rely upon their cordial
sympathy. "I am much encouraged," he writes, "to commend to you these my
last labours, for mine _ultimum vale_;" and then follows a piece of
friendly counsel: "Only this I desire, that you will be as careful to
hear them well expressed, as I have been both in the composing and
correcting of them. Otherwise the best song that ever was made will seem
harsh and unpleasant; for that the well expressing of them either by
voices or instruments is the life of our labours, which is seldom or
never well performed at the first singing or playing."

No musician of the Elizabethan age was more famous than John Dowland,
whose "heavenly touch upon the lute" was commended in a well-known
sonnet (long attributed to Shakespeare) by Richard Barnfield. Dowland
was born at Westminster in 1562. At the age of twenty, or thereabouts,
he started on his travels; and, after rambling through "the chiefest
parts of France, a nation furnished with great variety of music," he
bent his course "towards the famous province of Germany," where he found
"both excellent masters and most honourable patrons of music." In the
course of his travels he visited Venice, Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, and
Florence, gaining applause everywher