- 39
Campion, Thomas.
Description
- Important and unique set of the Four Books of "Ayres", Thomas Snodham [c.1613-c.1617], including
ii) The Second Booke of Ayres. Containing Light Conceits of Lovers. 13 leaves (unsigned title, verso blank [*], H-N2),
London, by Thomas Snodham, for Mathew Lownes and J. Browne [?1613];
iii) The Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres…So as they may be expressed by one Voyce, with a Violl, Lute or Orpharion. 22 leaves (signed A-N2), London: by Thomas Snodham [?1617]
first editions, 2 works in 3 volumes, folio (c.33.4mm. by 21.7cms), woodcut historiated architectural border on each title page (McKerrow & Ferguson, 132), each dedication leaf with a large woodcut historiated initial and woodcut or typographical headpiece, most songs with woodcut historiated or ornamental initial, table of Songs for first two Bookes within a typographic border, type-set music, some in “table-book” arrangement,
Bound in late nineteenth century limp straight-grain blue morocco with the number of the Booke in gilt on the spine. nineteenth century paper endleaves, in a brown morocco solander box, gilt-lettered on spine, one leaf expertly supplied in facsimile (I1 in The Second Booke), some minor marginal chipping, careful repairs to some tears and small holes, thumbing to lower right corners of pages consistent with performance, folio M2 (Second Booke) with a tiny hole affecting the music, first title incorrectly dated by an early hand ("1606"). A tall copy in clean condition
Provenance
1) William A White, with his pencilled signature (“W. A. White / 26 March 1890”) on front free endpaper of the first two volumes. White was the greatest American collector of his day of William Blake and the Jacobean playwrights.
2) A. S. W. Rosenbach Company. Catalogue 45, 1941, item 400
3) Arthur A. Houghton, with his morocco label; his sale, Christie’s, London, 13 June 1979, Lot 103 (see STC)
4) The Garden Collection, sale Sotheby’s, New York, 9 November 1989, lot 96
Literature
Catalogue Note
A unique set of all four "Bookes of Ayres", containing the only complete copy of the first issue of Book One (the Houghton copy)
The poetry of Thomas Campion (1567-1620) has been described as the last great flowering of verse in the high Elizabethan or "Euphuistic" style, combining these forms with elements of Jacobean poetry at its zenith. Whilst much verse of the period was written with musical performance in mind, Campion is the first major English poet to publish his poems with his own musical settings.
The first two books were issued together in 1613, signed throughout but with separate title pages (STC 4546.5): only two other copies are known, both imperfect (at Christ Church Oxford and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington). These first two books were then reissued with a general title replacing the first title (STC 4547, listing 2 copies: at the British Library, which nevertheless retains the separate title for The Second Booke, and the Huntington Library). Four copies are recorded in RISM and STC of "The Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres" (1617): in the British Library (which is cropped and silked), the Royal College of Music, the Folger, and the Huntington. Apart from this copy of all four books (which was sold in 1979 and again in 1989), we have no record for any first edition of Campion's poems appearing at auction for nearly fifty years and none at all of his music. These are beautiful tall copies with generous margins.
A contemporary of Shakespeare and Dowland, Campion fused English musical and poetic traditions during a period of greatness. He was highly regarded as a lyricist and second only to Jonson as a writer of masques, for which he also provided the music. Campion was in many ways the model Renaissance Man: a poet, musician, literary critic, lawyer and professional scientist (he practised medicine from 1607 and signed himself “Doctor in Physic”). He probably even attempted to emulate the soldier-poet heroics of Sir Philip Sidney by following the Earl of Essex in his mission to aid the French king, Henry IV in 1591.
In his preface to the First Booke, Campion states "in these English Ayres, I have chiefly aymed to couple my Words and Notes lovingly together, which will be much for him to doe that hath not power over both". He brings a fine lyrical sense to the musical tradition of the English Ayre. The poems are often of considerable literary merit, with many fine examples of the complex and fluid rhythms for which Campion is noted. Their subject matter ranges from the intensely serious 'Author of Light' and 'Never-Weather-beaten Saile' in the first book, to the rather erotic 'Beauty, since you so much desire, to know the place of Cupids fire' (a parody of his earlier poem 'Mistress, Since You so much desire' of 1601).
Campion was the most important lutenist-composer after Dowland and has received considerable attention from twentieth-century critics, who have perceived a perfect union in his music and poetry. Reese points out that Campion's excellence as a poet has tended to overshadow his musical achievements, but his Ayres are notable for their long-breathed and flexible melodies, rarely breaking off in the middle of lines and often folllowing irregular rhythmical patterns ("His light songs are almost epigrammatic in the conciseness of their forms"). Particularly attractive are 'Jack and Jone they think no ill' from the first book and the famous 'There is a garden in her face' (which includes the street-sellers cry "Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe"), from the fourth.
Although undated, the volumes can be dated with some confidence. The first two Bookes can be no earlier than 1613, since the last song of the first Booke ('All lookes be pale') is a lament on the death of Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I, who died in November 1612. The dedicatory poem to Sir Thomas Monson dates the Third Booke to 1617, since it celebrates the release of Campion’s patron after the muder of Sir Thomas Overbury, in which Campion was himself also implicated. Campion was exonerated in 1615 and Monson acquitted in February 1617.
Some of the music is printed in "table-format": in The First Booke and in The Seconde Book of Ayres, each part being notated separately in a configuration that presents, when the book is open, different parts in inverted and perpendicular positions, allowing the performers to read their parts while seated or standing across or around a table.