might be the very one, for both music and
words are singularly appropriate. The Refrain is as follows:--

'Tole on thou passing bell
Ringe out my dolefull _knell_
Let thy sound my death tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedye.'

The song is most plaintive, and has a very striking feature in the
shape of a real independent accompaniment, which keeps up a continual
figure of three descending notes, like the bells of a village church.
Hawkins gives the poem, with certain variations, and two extra verses
at the beginning, the first commencing--

'Defiled is my name full sore,
Through cruel spite and false report.'

and he says the verses are thought to have been written by Anne
Boleyn. Hawkins also gives music (in four parts) to the first two
verses, by Robt. Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare's. The music
of the song in Chappell is much older than that; indeed, it is very
possibly of Hen. VIII.'s time.

V

DANCES AND DANCING

The history of Dances is the history of the transition from pure vocal
music to pure instrumental music. In the Dances of the 16th century,
we have the germs of the modern 'Sonata' Form; and in the association
of certain of them we have the first attempt at a sequence of
different 'movements,' which finally resulted in the Sonata itself.

The Elizabethan Dances, especially the Pavan, shew us this development
just at the point where instrumental music was dividing itself from
vocal.

_All the ancient dances were originally sung._ In Grove's Dictionary,
Vol. ii. p. 676, there is given the music of a _Pavan_, in four vocal
parts, with the words sung [copied from Arbeau's Orchesographie,
1588]. Morley (Practical Music, 1597) mentions _Ballete_, as being
'songs which being sung to a dittie may likewise be danced.' Again, he
speaks of 'a kind of songs ... called Justinianas ... all written in
the _Bergamasca_ language.' See _Mids. Nt. Dream_ V, ii, 30, where
Bottom is not so very inaccurate after all in asking Duke Theseus to
'_hear_ a Bergomask dance between two of our company.' The same author
also gives '_Passamesos_ with a dittie [_i.e._, sung],' and
distinguishes between these aforesaid and 'those kinds which they make
_without_ ditties.' [Passamesos are Passing-measures--or
Passamezzo--Pavans, see _Twelfth Nt._ V, i, 200.]

Hence it appears that in Elizabeth's reign some dances were sung, and
others were simply played.

Morley goes on