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mention, lest being, as they are, disperst into private hands, they may chance be
hereafter lost'. 38 These included 'above thirty severall sorts of Musick for
Voices and Instruments'. Henry Lawes may at this time have been resident
near St Paul's, 39 close to Ludgate (where Richard Gibbon was then living,
according to the register entry for his marriage, 6 January 1648). The exact date
of Richard Gibbons move to Hart Street is not known. 40
The interest of this copy does not end here. The same scribe is found in Ob
MS Tenbury 1018 where, in a similar way, he uses up blank spaces (see Plate
4). 41 His work consists of an addition to the chorus of Robert Johnson's
'Caron, oh Caron come away' (fol. 8) from John Fletcher's The Mad Lover, 42
possibly used for the 1639 revival of the play (after Johnson's death); an
anonymous setting of 'This day our Saviour Christ was born (fols. 9v and 10,
with a score of the chorus from fol. 9v on fol. 48v), 43 and (fol. 12v) a
chromatic instrumental fragment.
38 The facsimile of Add. 31432 in E. Jorgens, ed., English Song 1600-1675 (New York,
1986-9), II, includes this elegy.
39 A lease to Henry Lawes of a house in 'Paule's Ally' was renewed on 29 May 1641
(London, Guildhall Library MS 19859/1, p. 84).
40 Register of St Augustine's Watling Street (microfilm at Guildhall Library). 'Dr Gibbons'
is recorded in the Poor Rate assessment books (Guildhall Library, MS 872) for St Olave Hart
Street in the years Easter 1651-2 and Easter 1652-3 (the preceding three years are not extant).
41 Facsimile in Jorgens, English Song, Vl.
42 Text ed. R. Turner in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, V
(Cambridge, 1982).
43 A further source of the words entitled 'A Christmas Hymn is in Ob MS Rawlinson poet.
95, fol. 38, where it is added to a collection of poems by Henry Clifford, afterwards 5th Earl of
Cumberland. I am grateful to Mrs Clare Brown of the Bodleian Library Department of
Western MSS for her assistance.