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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48911	The present practice of musick vindicated against the exceptions and new way of attaining musick lately publish'd by Thomas Salmon, M.A. &c. by Matthew Locke ... ; to which is added Duelium musicum, by John Phillips, Gent. ; together with a letter from John Playford to Mr. T. Salmon by way of confutation of his essay, &c.	Locke, Matthew, 1621 or 2-1677.; Phillips, John, 1631-1706. Duelium musicum.; Playford, John, 1623-1686?	1673 (1673)	Wing L2777; ESTC R12529	37,614	90

the Advancement of your new Reformation that he deserves double the Reward he received for it It begins thus There is not any Art which at this day is more Rude Vnpolish'd and Imperfect in the Writings of the Ancient and Modern Authors than Musick for the Elementary part thereof is little better than an indigested Mass and confused Chaos of impertinent Characters and insignificant Signs It is intricate and difficult to be understood it afflicts the Memory and consumeth much time before the knowledge thereof can be attained Because the Cliffs are divers their Transpositions frequent the Order and places of Notes very mutable and their denominations alterable and unfix'd These things being considered by the ingenious Author of this Book who endeavoureth only a reformation of the Regulative Principles of Practical Musick he hath here presented thee with an Eexpedient for the redress of these Obstacles c. Now Sir you being that ingenious Author here mentioned which has by your elaborate Pains great Learning and subtle Invention found out this new Expedient or Reformation I shall leave the Publisher and Epistle and proceed to examin the several Particulars and great Advantages proposed to us by your Book The first Chapter is nothing to the purpose of Reformation but a bare Discourse of the Advantages of Musick which is frequent in all Authors that have written of that Science The second Chapter is entituled The Gamut Reform'd Here the Axe is laid to the Root and you begin your Reformation thereof in words of reproach and defamation thus That which first of all terrifies a Beginner is a long Discourse of Gibbrish a fardle of hard Names and fictitious Words called the Gamut presented to him perfectly to be learned without Book till he can readily repeat it backwards and forwards as though a man must be exact in the Art of Conjuring before he might enter upon Musick Are not these prety Bugbear Words to fright Boys and Girls ever from learning Musick by such a Gamut that is compounded of hard insignificant Words to Conjure up Devils This Sir shews that because you understand not the excellent Use of that Gamut and its Words or Names you are therefore offended with it and endeavour to perswade others to the same opinion with your self which is ever the practice of Innovators Certainly Sir Men of greater knowledge in the Science of Musick than you can pretend to have declared them of better Use who tell us That they are Words or Names by which Notes or Sounds are called and known in their distinct and proper places and Notes or Sounds comprehend Musick and Musick is known rather to expel Devils than raise them it did out of Saul but Sir what operation it may have upon you I know not You go on in these Words But I am certain if he can say G A B C D E F G it will do to all intents and purposes as well We thank you for this as well but Sir will it do no better then why do you propose it to us when there 's no advantage in it Are we not much beholding to you Sir to deprive us of our Old Scale which is Universally approved and by known experience found to be perfect and good And impose upon us this New one of your own production lame and deformed a thin-gut Monster which has neither Speech nor Language whereby it may be understood yet are you so in love with it that you would fain lick it into some kind of form But your Tongue though well hung is not long enough Your next words are these For the plain truth is there are but seven Notes in all only repeated over and over again in double and treble proportion You say very right Sir but this is demonstrated more plain in the Old Scale than in your New one as thus it appears In the Old Scale the seven Notes and their Names are repeated three times over in words at length on their proper and assigned Rules and Spaces In yours but once and that in single Letters only which you tell us is to be done over and over in double and treble proportions Surely this needs must confound a Beginner there being no plain demonstration to guide him but only your Eight single Letters and his own Imagination Page 14. your words are these Those aforesaid hard Names are nothing to the purpose they can't declare a Note to be in a different Octave This declares again that you do not or wilfully will not understand the Old Scale notwithstanding Mr. Locke lately sent you an excellent pair of Observing Spectacles for that purpose with which if you view the Old Scale you will see there are different names enough in each of the Octaves to distinguish them in their proper places of Bass Mean and Treble Is not the Octave to Gam ut in the Bass G sol re ut in the Mean To A re A la mi re To B mi B fa b mi To C fa ut C sol fa ut To D sol re D la sol re Here are diverse Names sufficient to distinguish between the Octaves of the Bass and Mean So in the Treble or higher Octave there are differe●t Names as C sol fa D la sol E la which Names are in neither of the lower Octaves of Mean and Bass. Therefore this Objection against the Old Scale is removed and may be fixed more properly upon your New one which consists only of Eight single Letters set down in this Chap. Page 17. and there named The New Gamut So that all a Beginner hath to distinguish your Octaves by is to say A in the first and A in the second and A in the third which is the whole design of your what d' ye call 't Hypothesis or circulation of Octaves and probably might hold good if all that learn'd your way were taught to Sing by Letters or Tablature for by Notes they cannot And this it was which made you scratch your head to the purpose But what will not a man do before he will scratch a hole in 't Alass your New Gamut is so young it can't speak nor ever would unless you seek out for help wherefore rather than it should continue speechless you 'l take confidence and borrow out of the Old Scale those Gibbrish Words or Names of Notes Sol La Mi Fa c. which but a little before you render so terrible to a Learner He that shall read your Page 15. will have cause to smile to hear how ridiculously you quarrel against the Old Scale yet in the four last Lines thereof your words are these Wherefore that We may know how to place Mi They give us this Rule not so for you take it which alwayes holds good a civil acknowledgment viz. before Mi ascending to name Fa Sol La and after Mi descending La Sol Fa. Now Sir you have gotten this Old Rule I will insert your following words in the next Page that

understand not one Note of their Composure These Sir These bold and untrue Aspersions thrown on All Masters of Practical Musick and All Gentlemen and others that have learn'd their way as if your taking a Degree had authorized you to abuse Men together with the perpetual magnifying your self and the Brat your Essay were the Motives of my inserting a Merry Proverb or Simily here and there in my Observations and those if I mistake not of your doubty manner of Vindicating it Sir I have been told that Generosity is a constant Attendant on Noble and Heroick Spirits and should have believ'd it had I not heard of many Great Ones that abhorr'd the found of the very word but you Sir by those showers of Bounty heap'd on me in the Vindication of your Essay have made so absolute a Convert of me that I hold it a Duty necessary to let the World know how admirably your Tongue speaks your Heart Sir you have prevented a long Journey and much trouble for its discovery in your Title Page by slily concealing the Titles of those real Favours their Majesties have been graciously pleas'd to confer on me in both their Services that thereby you might take advantage to render me contemptible to all that know me not and all other your tender-hearted Proselites who believe you are already in possession of some Infallible Chair and consequently can speak or write nothing but Truth As fair an Introduction for your following Discourse as Heart could wish In your Advice to the Reader you tell him Moor-fields and the Bear-Garden are Entertainments only for the Rabble your old Cronies to prevent therefore my being drawn into the Lists of their Active and Martial Atchievements you to render me impudent as well as ignorant have plac'd me on the Grand Theatre of the World bidding Defiance first to your Learned Patron Dr. Wallis then to the Royal Society and all Mathematicians that have been are or shall be andlastly to Modesty Honesty Piety and whatever else relates to God or Good Men. Behold Sir an Abbreviate of your transcendent additional Favours Favours indeed and when really considered such as in all probability could not proceed from any but your self your Epistoler or that Great Prince who pretends Right to all that 's donable in this World But of their Particulars hereafter At present give me leave if you please to admire that so much Prodigality should be used to so little purpose especially when I reflect on that great and extraordinary Call which necessitated you as your self confess to this Act of Reformation for no sooner can I cast my Eye on the Vindication but I lose the Essay this proposing a nearer and easier way to the attaining of Practical Musick that running quite from it to what either we have already past or to what is meerly speculative or at most insignificant to us So that upon a true account when your jingling with and playing on my words with your perpetual wresting or falsifying them are laid aside there 's not one word in the Vindication makes good the Title and Contents of the Essay but your own bare affirming you have demonstrated it which how true it is I appeal to all Masters of Practical Musick who are and ought to be Judges in this Case of Practice Yet Sir left your Whirligig Members should think me too severe and judge that I write rather out of spite and malice to your Person than against your Opinion which you and your Dearly Beloved have already proclam'd though Heaven knows for what be pleas'd to remember that from Pag. 10. to Pag. 27. in my Observations I demonstrate by the Old Scale by the brief Explanation of it and by the several Examples there inserted the Conveniency and Necessity of the Cliffs as they are universally received on the one side and the intricacy and perplexity which perpetually attends your B M T 's mutability without which you cannot advantagiously write any thing according to your own Rule that has the extent of a well-design'd Composition on the other But what 's your Answer to this not one word though it be the Hinge on which the whole Discourse depends as to Practical Musick and which was your Task but after a long Digression from it intermix'd with all kind of abusive Language an old stoln Cycle to tell us an Octave is an Octave that Musick is part of the Mathematicks which no Man yet ever doubted of that pretended to Musick and an Argument if any one will take it for such back'd with such a Scheme as being truly applied undeniably destroys all you pretend to build and confirms what so furiously you would destroy notwithstanding your desperate threatning to pull down Sampson-like the Observer in your ruin and crush him with five times the weight of his own Objection For those absurdities which you charge the Old Scale with are really none but evident Fortifiers of its certainty being that where-ever the C sol favt Cliff is placed the second Space below is perpetually G sol re vt Example Unisons And that one absurdity which you confess to be in your New Way by the assistances of your Lieger Line and Exoticks multiplies on every Note throughout your whole Scale Example Unisons c. c. This Sir is so evident in it self that it needs neither Argument nor Scheme to maintain or demonstrate it to any Person indued with Common Sense And truly Sir according to this Rate this excellent Method of Proving you may Write and Answer Books with as much ease as you pretend you could Command the World for nothing can come amiss to so great a Mind the Examples of ruin'd Monarchs touch you not the Infamy attending Libellous Scriblers holds not your hands what you will must be what not not And this is that and only that which I can any way perceive the World is ever like to have from you excepting your new invented Wheel of Seven Spokes for a Tyler or Carpenter to reach the top of a House with instead of his old Ladder your New Way of Account to tell a Farmer Paul's Fair will be D in the fourth Octave instead of the Twenty fifth of Ianuary and the incomparable B M T for a fair Lady to Learn with all Expedition the singing of a Base in Confort which Posterity may admire you for though the present Age be not so good natur'd But to proceed In my Observations Pag. 33. 34. I mention the ridiculousness of confining the Viol to a Tuning incapable of being used well in more than one Key whereas the Old Way injoyed all and particularly do manifest your contradicting your own Rule of keeping every Octave and Part within the System of Four Lines by planting the first Note of an Example taken from Mr. Simpson in a Sixth Line and putting the same Note that is to be Plaid on the same String and Fret here in the Line there in the Space then again in the Line

upon him so much beneath his great reading that he only thinks him a Companion for the Observers mean Capacity The best on 't is we look upon him as a real Exception to all true Maxims For if honour were in honorante while he is the bestower sad were our Condition But there is no such thing in him or that can come from him it is rather a blemish than a praise to be well spoken of by him and therefore let him honour e'ne who he pleases He proceeds to a great Astonishment at the Observers resentment against any propagating the knowledge of Musick thereby thinking to raise to himself a vain ostentation of his own endeavours He means doubtless the famous Essay A worshipful Advancement of Musick indeed which the most ingenious Author durst not trust into the World without the strong recommendation and most notable blessing of a Publishers Preface For which courtisie of helping a lame dog Ferunt aiunt that some body or other had paid him in pecuniis numeratis four Pound ten Shillings which render'd that some-body a wise man and the Counterfeit Essayer a meer Musical Cully And shews you how little Wit or Memory he had to tax the Observer for being Mr. Playfords hireling Alas had the Gentleman found there had been any reputation to have been gotten by the Essay He would soon have wrench'd it out of the Vindicators feeble hands and assum'd it to himself And therefore I would have this idle contemner of the Observer forbear those Hackney-windy-Bottle-Ale-expressions of my Essay my way my Octaves my Circulation 'T were a modesty more becoming him than the folly of an impertinent Vindicator and more worth his while for the fame he will get by his works But amongst the rest of his My's What think you of My Stationer By my troth he is well hope up with an Author I pity the poor man's case for in a short time the City will find him out and then he must either fine or hold In his 70. p. he prosecutes the Observer for spoiling his Marriage as he pretends for declaring him to have a rubical Complexion What a strange Map of Modesty this is to be dash'd out of Countenance by his own Face No No my dear Friend 't is not the Colour will injure you but you are so bashful so modest so nice so startled at the very sound of a baudy word that it makes the Women believe you have only a little heat in your Face and none no where else Otherwise a Masculine complexion would rather promote than disappoint your Conjugal attempts Nay I dare affirm if it be not as I say that the Ladies are so mild so courteous so meek so endearing so obliging so tender-hearted and merciful that they will never reject a young mans suit for a pimple upon his Nose nor consent to that wicked intention of the Observer or rather that wilful mistake of his of throwing dust in a Squires Face where he should have daub'd his Pommatum But whence comes this red Face not by Drinking nor Smoaking But as Dr. Lower learnedly tells ye Ladies lib. de Sanguine a Book which ye have all read by the errancy of the Blood which causes a great confluence of Spirits to the Brains A reason well urg'd to understanding Widows and Maids but not to Illiterate men For how can this be apply'd to a person that has neither Brains nor Spirits 'T is you therefore Ladies that are guilty and not the Observer 'T is you that have kindled those fires in his Breast that have so sadly scorch'd his Countenance Disdain not therefore your own Martyr What though you have tann'd his Face with the flaming beams of your Beauty yet is his Mind as white as Snow and his Thoughts as pure as Lambs-Conduit-Water For surely no Pharisee did ever pretend to more Piety and Virtue than he assumes to himself on every slight occasion Nihil est te Sanctius uno Nay this very redness of his Complexion forsooth must be the Gentleman-Usher to his Godly life He 'l make ye believe shortly that his Nose is the Sun-shine of the Gospel But all is not gold that glisters for methinks with a little crum of Riboldry as he terms it in the Observers Answer such as has been ever allowed in Satyrical replies I thought at first the modest maidenly Gentleman would have fall'n into a Fit of the Mother but when I found him chomping and chawing it so often in his Vindication it was apparent then that 't was not Anger which had overcome him but the sweetness and Honey-combness of the expression that had so ravish'd his pallate so that he could even have swallow'd it He does so tongue it and lick it as if 't were his dear Concubine BMT So often and needlessly repeated as if he took occasion to scold at the Observer only that he might have an oppotunity to dandle the delicious sucket upon the tip of his lascivions Instrument of tasting He endeavours now of his great gratitude to the Observer to shew you that he has not been only at the University but at School too though where with most advantage to his Learning will puzzle a good Casuist to judge However in Robbing Peter to pay Paul he has made a hard shift to transcribe a certain Epigram out of Val. Martial as he calls him a way of citing Martial that I never knew a Scholar much guilty of but perhaps he took Val for Martials Christen name and then I cannot blame him for using that cunning mark of distinction But what has Martial to do with the Observer why nothing that I know of but only to tell ye that the Observer wears a Peruque as many other men do and that he has made use of a youthful expression to put a deserved mockery upon the Harlotry Dalilah's of such a young Pragmaticus Who if he had so pleas'd might have observ'd that the very Author whom he cites makes use of far more ribaldry as he calls it when he meets with such an Impertinent as the Essayer and thinks it convenient to have his guils well rubb'd with his Satyrick Salt For example being to reprehend the folly of some trifling Essayer or other of his time a great Braggard though but a small performer and Scandalously invective against his Seniours and Superiours He handles him without Mittins as you may perceive in the following lines presented the Vindicator in liew of his own Transcription Lib. 10. Epist. 11. Nil aliud l●qu●ris quam Thesea Perithoumque Teque putas Pyladi Calliodore Parem Dispeream si Tu Pyladi prestare matellam Dignus es aut Porcos pascere Perithoi Thou talk'st of Theseus and of Perithous And cry'st great Pylades is much below us Ne're let me live if such a bouncing soft Be worthy but to scowr the Chamber-pot Of Pylades or for a brace of juggs To clense the Sties of Perithous Hoggs This in brief since he is pleas'd to remit the Observer to