A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Watson, Thomas

by William Henry Husk

WATSON, Thomas, put forth in 1590 'The first sett of Italian Madrigalls Englished, not to the sense of the original dittie, but after the affection of the Noate. By Thomas Watson. There are also heere inserted two excellent Madrigalls of Master William Byrd's composed after the Italian vaine at the request of the sayd Thomas Watson.' It is dedicated in a Latin metrical epistle to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and there is also a similar epistle addressed to Luca Marenzio, the celebrated Italian madrigal composer, from whose works 23 of the 28 madrigals included in the publication were taken. Many of these madrigals are still well known. Watson is conjectured to have been identical with Thomas Watson, a native of London, who after studying poetry for some time at Oxford, returned to London to study law, and died about 1592. A collection of sonnets by him entitled 'Hecatompathia, or Passionate Centurie of Love,' was licensed in 1581, and some poems by him were inserted in the collection called England's Helicon,' 1614.

[ W. H. H. ]