The Rival Maids: Anne Killigrew, Anne Kingsmill and the making of the court masque Venus and Adonis (music by John Blow)

Abstract

22100 is a bound volume containing thirty-one pieces by a selection of composers, elegantly and accurately copied by John Walter, organist of Eton College. Binding preceded copying: sometimes Walter shut the book before just-applied ink had dried, offsets from one page to another resulting. The order in which Walter copied pieces into 22100 is not in doubt therefore. He added Venus and Adonis last of all. 10 22100 has an ownership inscription: 'M r Dolbin s book / Anno domini 1682/1'. This, together with the name 'M r James Hart' and a duplicate (undated) inscription 'Mr Dolbin s Booke', can now be found at the back of the volume: for some reason Walter turned 22100 over and started copying from the 'wrong', uninscribed end. 11 Mr Dolbin was Gilbert Dolben, almost certainly, a well-connected musical patron in 1680s London. Hart was a bass singer in the Chapel Royal choir, an experienced theatre performer (he had appeared with Mary Davis in the 1675 court masque Calisto), and a former co-proprietor of the Chelsea school that Priest owned and managed from 1680. 12 Walter's reason for copying so much music into Dolben's book can only be guessed at. Perhaps he charged a fee; perhaps he owed Dolben a favour. Dolben may have given him the book to do what he liked with, not expecting its return.