Commentaries on Humphrey Smith's To the Musicioners
Edwin Alton, When the Harpe and the Musicke Goe
Douglas Gwyn, letter to Esther Mürer
Douglas Gwyn, from The Covenant CrucifiedTo the Musicioners (original version)
To the Musicioners (modernized version)
Music has now become so much a part of the life of so many Friends—we have had music at Yearly Meeting and now we have a Quaker Fellowship of the Arts—that many Quakers in these days have forgotten, if indeed they have ever known of, the opposition of early Friends to music.
George Fox's attitude was ambiguous; he was an advocate of the arts in schools, and this would, presumably, include music; and yet, as he records in his Journal, he was moved "to cry against all sorts of music, and against the mountebanks playing tricks upon their stages, for they burden the pure life, and stirred up peoples minds to vanity and wantonness." (1694) Fox was not alone in his denunciation of music: most of his early followers were of the same mind. The reasons for this are no doubt many, but it would seem fairly obvious that the first generation quakers, coming mostly from yeoman stock of country districts, had rarely come in contact with "art music" which was almost entirely a culture of cities. Probably their experience of music was limited to the fiddler at the country wedding, the town waits, the mountebanks at the fair and in the music books, the barber's shop, the music of the street and taverns, none of it of a very lofty order and, in their view, associate with "deceitful merchandise and cheating and cozening: and much wanton behaviour. We do not hear them using the argument of wasted time as did later Friends.
We are not without evidence of singing in a limited way amongst Friends, but, for the most part, Quakers maintained their leader's opposition to the art, and indeed went much further in their expressions of disapproval.
One of the earliest Quaker denunciations of music to appear in print was a small pamphlet written by Humphrey Smith, who claimed to have been a music lover at one time. It was published in London in the Eleventh month 1658, and according to the title, which occupies the whole of the first page, the tract was addressed to The Musicioners, the Harpers, the Minstrels, the Singers, the Persecutors; (From one who loved Dancing and Musick as his life, which being parted with, and the LIGHT being come, which was before these things, in which they are all seen, and from it is declared, The Ground, Foundation . . . etc.).
Smith begins his wild, erratically-punctuated diatribe by endeavouring to show how corrupt and evil were the musicians and music-lovers of ancient times, drawing his illustrations from the Old Testament.
Jubal was the father of all such as handle the Harp and Organ, and so the father of all such Musicioners, being himself of the seed of Lamech, who slew a man, and so the son of a man-slayer was the father of all such as handle the Harp and Organ . . . and Jubal was of the generation of Cain, who first slew a man, and then built a City; he slew his brother . . . the Musicioners were of Cains seed, and that which slays the man of sorrows, invents, set up and delights in the instruments of music . . . and the father of all such was Jubal, the seed of Cain, who built a City, and so was a rich man, and his seed delighted in musick, and so his seed, who are begotten from the Lord, are building Cities, strong holds, high and large houses, with painted Parlours, and then set up the instruments of Musick, in the ceiled houses without, and within themselves full of rottenness, or as a Cage of unclean spirits . . . And they who danced in the wilderness, and sung and made a great noise, and were in the mirth and vain delights, were a stiff-necked people . . . and rose up to play, like the same generation now, who are stiff necked.
Next, Humphrey Smith draws his readers' attention to Herod who "had dancing before him" when he beheaded John the Baptist. Such powerful rulers, who did not scruple to murder the messengers of God, were lovers of music and dancing! The King of Babylon himself, "a mighty one in confusion . . . had many instruments of Musick, and he that delighted in the musick set up the golden image, and by his command, they that heard the musick were presently to fall down and worship the golden image." Whoever loves music, says Smith, seeks to murder the just! Music so acts upon him that he follows after false gods; or, as he puts it, "When the Harp and the Musicke goe they must worship the Image in the worlds figure." In contrast, the Israelites, when they were carried into captivity because of their evil-doing, hung their harps upon the willows as a recognition that it was the evil in their hearts that had led them into bondage, and in the belief that a renunciation of their wicked love of music might show their repentance.
Then very abruptly Humphrey Smith interrupts his denunciations of the ancients to mention his own times. [Note] The rulers of England, he says, are not far removed from the evil of the ancients, nor are "the Princes, the Governours, the Shriefs [sic], and the Rulers of the Provinces, [who] delighteth in the instruments of Musike, and are envious against the righteous seed, who cannot bow to any image, nor worship, any golden glorious image." Moreover, these powerful ones in high places are uniting in order to persecute those who worship God in spirit. At length, on his final pate, he directly addresses the "Poets, Jesters, Rhimers, and makers of Verses and Ballads," and including musicians in the number. Their work of "tickling up ears of people" with jests and toys "proceeds from a wrong heart where dwells the lust." He therefore exhorts all young wits to stop their verse-making "for it is the Ballad-makers trade and the fiddlers road," the downward path to destruction. He tells the learned folk that good, honest labour is worth more than all their learning and art.
But I shall tell you the Schollers of Oxford and Cambridge, in your rhimes and in your jests in your verses and in your Lodgick, it would be more pleasing to God for you to get a spade on your backs, & a great old glove; and a bill in your hand, and stop gaps and make up old hedges, and thresh out corn, & go amongst the day labouring men to 3d. a day, and this is more wholesome and this is a sweet savour, and burn all your Logick books and verse books, ye schollars of Oxford and Cambridge, & you Ballad-makers and Fiddlers and Players and Mountebanks who poyson the world and poor people . . . the wrath of God is come upon you all, and your swimming seen, and what you swim in, with all your verses and your Lodgick, and your Ballads and Rhimes, both Ballad-Makers and Mountebancks, and Schollers and Fidlers . . . the Lord hath a controversie with you . . . for the terrible God is come to reign, and you have no place to hide your selves, when every hailestone shall fall upon you the weight of a Talent, this is in love to your souls.
Music making, Humphrey Smith believed, is inextricably mingled with evil and mit must be denounced with all one's force. Then he adds a naive post-script: "This may be Translated (truely) into Latine, French or other Languages by any friend in the truth."
We smile today at the quaint ideas and the vehemence of their expression, and shake our heads over the strange prejudices of our ancestors in the faith. And yet might we not, too, be harbouring ideas and opinions that to the generations to come might seem just as outlandish? It would be a salutary experience indeed if we could see ourselves as others will see us three hundred years hence!
Smith's critique in the tract is interesting because it is incipiently socio-economic, and based in the Bible. Tracing the origin of music to Jubal, the descendent of Cain, in Genesis 4, he sees the arts as founded in the violence and social hierarchy of the city. He focuses mainly on music and dance -- making good use of the story of Herod and Salome as an example of dance at the expense of prophetic witness.
As an avid music listener, I cannot go along with Smith in eschewing the muses, but I think his critique is a good one to keep in our line of vision, realizing how much of "the arts" is predicated upon social hierarchy and exploitation. The corporate sponsorship that currently undergirds the big-time arts is only the most acute sign, I suppose.
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