Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

'
,
166 ROUND EOUSSEAU
popular. Amongst them there is also a curious
'Round of three Country Dances in one' for
four voices, which is in reality a Quodlibet on
the country-dance tunes 'Robin Hood,' 'TSow
foot it,' and
'
The Crampe is in my purse.'
'Pammelia' was followed by two other collections
brought out by Ravenscroft, 'Deuteromelia'
in 1609, and 'Melismata' in 1611, and
the numerous publications of the Playfords, the
most celebrated of which is ' Catch that catch
can, or the Musical Companion' (1667), which
passed through many editions. The most complete
collection of rounds and catches is that
published by Warren in thirty -two monthly
and yearly numbers, from 1763 to 1794, which
contains over 800 compositions, including many
admirable specimens by Purcell, Blow, and other
masters of the English school. It is to be regretted
that they are too often disfigured by an
obscenity of so gross a nature as to make them
now utterly unfit for performance. A good
specimen of the" round proper is Hayes's ' Wind,
gentle evergreen.' The Round has never been
much cultivated by foreign composers. One or
two examples are, however, well known, amongst
them may be mentioned Cherubini's 'Perfida
Clori.'
Any dance in which the dancers stood in
II.
a circle was formerly called a round or roundel.^
The first edition of the 'Dancing Master' (1651)
has thirteen rounds, for six, eight, or ' as many
as will.' Subsequent editions of the same book
have also a dance called ' Cheshire Bounds,' and
Part II. of Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing
Master ' (1719) has Irish and Shropshire
'
rounds. These latter dances are, however,
not danced in a ring, but 'longways,' i.e. like
' Sir- Roger de Coverley. ' In Jeremiah Clarke's
'Choice Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinett
(1711), and similar contemporary publications,
the word rondo is curiously corrupted into
'Round 0.' w. B. s.
ROUND, CATCH, AND CANON CLUB.
A society founded in London in 1843, by Enoch
Hawkins, for the purpose of singing the new
compositions of the professional members and
others, written in the form of Round, Catch, and
Canon ; hence the title of the Club. Among the
original members were Messrs. Enoch Hawkins,
Hobbs, Bradbury, Handel Gear, Henry Phillips,
Addison, D'Almaine, and F. W. CoUard. The
meetings were originally held at the Crown and
Anchor Tavern whence the Club removed to
the Freemasons' Tavern, thence to the Thatched
House, again to Freemasons' Tavern, and to St.
James's Hall, where, until the demolition of
the building, it assembled every fortnight from
the first Saturday in November until the end
of March, ten meetings being held in each
season. [Its meetings are now held in the
Criterion Restaurant, and take place on Mon-
1 <
Come now a roundel and a fairy song.'
Jlidsu^mnsT yight'a Dream, act il. ac. 2.
day evenings instead of Saturdays.] In the
earlier years of its existence the number both of
professional and non- professional members at
each dinner rarely exceeded eighteen, but now
from sixty to seventy dine together. The
management of the Club is in the hands of the
oflSoers, who are the proprietors, and each of
whom in turn takes the chair, and is alone
responsible for the entertainment. The musical
programmes now consist mainly of glees, although
an occasional catch is introduced. [The
professional members at present (1907) are
Messrs. W. Coward, G. May, E. Dalzell, F.
Norcup, G. and H. Stubbs, assisted by a boy
treble. The officers are Messrs. J. A. Brown,
Fred. Walker, and Robt. Hilton.] For nonprofessional
members there is an entrance fee of
three guineas, and an annual subscription for the
ten meetings and dinner of five guineas, c. M.
ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques, bom at Geneva,
June 28, 1712, died at ErmenonvUle, nearPaiis,
July 3, 1778, five weeks after Voltaire. The
details of his life are given in his Confessions ;
we shall here confine ourselves to his compositions,
and his writings on music. Although,
like all who learn music late in life and in a
desultory manner without a. master, Rousseau
remained to the end a poor reader and an
indifferent harmonist, he exercised a great
influence on French music. Immediately after
his arrival in Paris he read a paper before the
Academic des Sciences (August 22, 1742) on
a, new system of musical notation, which he
afterwards extended and published under the
title of Dissertation sur la miisique modeme
(Paris, 1743, 8vo). His method of representing
the notes of the scale by figures— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7—had been already proposed by Souhaitty,
but Rousseau's combinations, and especially his
signs of duration, are so totally diSerent as
entirely to redeem them from the charge of
plagiarism. A detailed analysis and refutation
of the system may be found in Raymond's Des
prineipaux sysUmes de notation tmisicale (Turin,
1824, Svo), to which the reader is referred ; but
it is evident that, however convenient notation
by means of figures may be for writing a simple
melody, it becomes a.s complicated as the old
system when modulation or polyphony are attempted.
Its very uniformity also deprives the
reader of all assistance from the eye ; the sounds
must be spelt out one by one, and the difficulty
of deciphering orchestral combinations or complicated
harmonies becomes almost insuperable.
Copying music had been Rousseau's means of
livelihood, and this led him to believe that the
best way to learn an art is to practise it ; at any
rate he composed an opera, 'Les Muses galantes'
(1747), which was produced at the house of La
Popeliniere, when Rameau, who was present,
declared that some pieces showed the hand of a
master, and others the ignorance of a schoolboy.
Not being able to obtain access to any of the