A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Wilson, John (1594-1673)

by William Henry Husk

WILSON, John, Mus. Doc., was born at Feversham, Kent, April 5, 1594. Of his early career nothing certain is known. He has been conjectured to have been a singer at the theatre, and identical with the 'Jacke Wilson' whose name appears in the first folio edition of Shakspere's plays, in 'Much Ado about Nothing,' instead of that of Balthazar, the character represented. But the grounds for such conjecture are merely that he was a singer, and that, at some period of his life, he composed music for some of Shakspere's songs, viz. 'Take, O take those lips away,' 'Sigh no more, ladies,' 'Lawn as white as driven snow,' and 'Where the bee sucks.' Besides which, it must be remembered that Mr. Payne Collier has proved,^[1] from the registers of St. Giles, Cripplegate, the existence of a contemporary John Wilson, a musician, son of a minstrel, baptised in 1585. Edward Alleyn, in his diary, under date Oct. 22, 1620, mentions 'Mr. Wilson, the singer,' who was, doubtless, the theatrical singer, but there is nothing to identify him with the subject of this notice. Wilson is said to have been a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal to Charles I., but his name is not to be found in the Chapel cheque-book, nor in the list of the Chapel musicians contained in a warrant, dated April 20, 1641, exempting them from payment of subsidies. It occurs, however, in a similar warrant, dated April 17, 1641, affecting others of the king's musicians, as one of the 'Musicians for the Waytes.' In 1644 he obtained the degree of Mus. Doc. at Oxford, and took up his abode in that city, which, however, he quitted in 1646, and went to reside with Sir William Walter, of Sarsden, Oxfordshire, who, with his wife, were great lovers of music. Songs by Wilson were published in 'Select Musicall Ayres and Dialogues,' 1652, 1653, and 1659. In 1656 he was appointed Professor of Music in the University of Oxford, and again became a resident there. In 1657 he published 'Psalterium Carolinum. The Devotions of His Sacred Majestie in his solitudes and sufferings, Rendred in Verse [by Thomas Stanley], Set to Musick for 3 Voices, and an Organ or Theorbo'—a series of 26 passages from the Psalms presumed to be applicable to the position of Charles I. in his latter days. This he described as 'his last of labours.' In some lines prefixed to the work, Henry Lawes, the writer of them, begs him to 'call back thy resolution of not composing more.' In 1660 he published 'Cheerful Ayres or Ballads, first composed for one single voice, and since set for three voices.' On Oct. 22, 1662, he was sworn in as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the place of Henry Lawes, deceased, upon which he resigned his professorship at Oxford and came to reside in London. Some glees and catches by him are included in Playford's 'Musical Companion,' 1667, and the words of some anthems in Clifford's collection. Many songs by him are extant in MS., and in the Bodleian Library is a MS. volume, presented by him to the University, containing settings of some of the Odes of Horace and passages from other Latin poets. He died at his house near the Horse-ferry, Westminster, Feb. 22, 1673, aged 78 years, 10 months and 17 days, and was buried Feb. 27, in the Little Cloisters of Westminster Abbey. A portrait of him is in the Music School, Oxford. He is said to have been a fine lutenist. We learn from some lines prefixed to the 'Cheerful Ayres' that Charles I. greatly admired his singing, and Herrick, in an epigram addressed to Henry Lawes, mentions him as a great singer, styling him 'curious Wilson.' Henry Lawes, in the lines prefixed to the 'Psalterium Carolinum,' thus speaks of him as a composer:—

Thou taught'st our language, first, to speak in tone;
Gav'st the right accents and proportion;
And above all (to shew thy excellence)
Thou understand'st good words, and do'st set sense.

Lawes, when writing these lines, had evidently not forgotten Milton's sonnet addressed to himself. In the same lines he alludes to Wilson's 'known integrity,' 'true and honest heart, even mind,' and 'good nature.'

[ W. H. H. ]

1. Introduction to 'Memoirs of the Principal Actors in Shakspere's plays.'