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Studies in Bibliography 56 (2003-2004) 281-293

New Light on John Hoadly and His `Poems Set to Music by Dr. Greene'
H. Diack Johnstone

It was Keith Maslen who, in the pages of this journal, first drew attention to a small but nonetheless interesting volume of poems by John Hoadly (1711-76) which is now in the rare books collection of the University of Otago library and whose contents are said (on its front cover) to have been `Set to Music by Dr. Greene'. 1 This consists partly of printed libretti (with autograph additions) and partly of libretti in the poet's own hand. As a musicologist long concerned with the wok of Maurice Greene (1696-1755), I was naturally intrigued, and in a companion piece published two years later I sought to fill in some of the musical background; 2 neither could I resist the temptation to speculate on what other Hoadly verse known to have been set by Greene might possibly have appeared in the now missing section of this volume. The two men had known each other well since 1730 at least, in which year Greene took a doctorate of music at Cambridge, and Hoadly, his junior by fifteen years, went up to Corpus Christi College (Cambridge) to read law. Shortly after he came down (in 1735) John Hoadly became a clergyman, chiefly, it is said, to avail himself of the rich patronage at his father's disposal. 3 He was also passionately interested in the theatre, and, already intimate with Hogarth, he later on—in the 1740s—became good friends with David Garrick and James (`Hermes') Harris as well. For Greene, he produced not only a great many song texts, but also the libretti for no fewer than five major works: two pastoral operas, two oratorios and a masque. In chronological order these are Florimel or Love's Revenge (1734), Jephtha (1737), The Choice of Hercules (1740), The Force of Truth (1743) and Phoebe (1747). 4 The wordbooks were published anonymously, the first in [End Page 281] no fewer than five editions, 5 and printed copies of all but The Choice of Hercules are to be found in the Otago source, where they are, in each case, provided with cast lists, and, for Florimel and Phoebe, a trio of dedicatory poems, all in the hand of John Hoadly himself. 6 An autograph copy of The Choice of Hercules (with cast list) is there too, its text written out no doubt because the printed version had not been issued separately, but was contained within A Miscellany of Lyric Poems, The Greatest Part Written for, and Performed in the Academy of Music, Held in the Apollo (London, 1740) where, incidentally, it is entitled `The Judgment of Hercules'. The Academy of Music at the Apollo was a semi-private music club founded by Greene seven or eight years earlier, and at which, as is evident from Hoadly's cast lists, all five works listed here had been performed.

Of the two dedicatory poems which Hoadly inserted into the Otago copy of the Winchester editon of Love's Revenge, one (undated) is inscribed to Diana, Duchess of Bedford; the other, to James Harris, is dated 1743, and must have been designed to accompany a score of the work apparently sent to him by the librettist in the autumn of that year. 7 Also dating from 1743, and evidently intended for Harris himself to set, is an autograph copy of the libretto of the oratorio, The Song of Moses. There is a second autograph copy from the library of the Earl of Malmesbury now housed in the Hampshire County Record Office in Winchester, Hants., and this is the one actually sent by Hoadly to the prospective composer. In the event, Harris never got round to it, and Hoadly, many years later (in 1775), passed a copy to Garrick with the request that he send it on to Thomas Linley in Bath for consideration. It was not the elder Thomas...

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