RASTROLOGY AND REVISION

In order to establish how much of the ode had been completed by the time of King William's death, it is necessary to examine the autograph manuscript from a codicological perspective. The following discussion of the rastrology, paper types and textual amendments demonstrates which parts of the ode were revised or newly composed for Queen Anne, allowing the work's genesis to be understood fully for the first time. Such analysis is also integral to understanding the collaborative effort between poet and composer.

The manuscript comprises twenty-nine folios in upright format, with twelve staves ruled on each page. The binding is tight and it is, unfortunately, impossible to tell from examination of the gutter whether these are single sheets or bifolios. There is no title page, but f. 29v bears Eccles's name, which has blotted onto the single, unruled folio that follows (presumably a wrapper). The handwriting is consistent throughout the ode, and there can be no doubt but that this manuscript is autograph when one compares it with other known examples of Eccles's writing, such as his music for Macbeth of 1694 (GB-Lbl, Add. 12219) and his 1701 Ode for St Cecilia's Day, Oh Harmony, to Thee We Sing (GB-Lbl, RM.24.d.6). This is especially clear from a comparison of treble clefs (a thin, swirling ‘G’, as can be seen in Figures 1, 3, 6 and 7) and time signatures in all three manuscripts. Also strikingly similar are the underlaid text and formation of semiquavers and other note shapes. The manuscript of Inspire Us Genius appears at first glance to be a ‘fayre’ score, copied from the composer's ‘fowle originalls’.Footnote ¹⁷ There is evidence that it was intended to be used as an exemplar from which copyists were to draw individual performance parts: at bar 21 of the Overture on f. 1r, and at bar 45 of the second movement on f. 4r, Eccles has written in the total number of bars to these points. To my knowledge, little research has been undertaken in regard to the presence and function of tally numbers in English manuscripts.Footnote ¹⁸ Scholarship dealing with the autograph manuscripts of Antonio Vivaldi, to take a nearly contemporaneous example, reveals that the composer commonly used tally numbers, particularly when the manuscript in question was intended as an exemplar from which to make copies.Footnote ¹⁹ Despite significant changes made to the Inspire Us Genius manuscript during the process of reworking, it can be considered a fair copy in the hand of the composer and was most probably intended as an exemplar to be drawn into parts by copyists.Footnote ²⁰

Figure 3

Music Paper A, ruled with two sets of six staves. Emendations made to the line ‘her Reign yields/gives greater Blessings’, visible in text under staves 10 and 11. GB-Lbl, Add. 31456, f. 10v. Used by permission

According to the British Library catalogue, the composition of the ode had reached f. 10v when the king died unexpectedly:

However, as we shall see, much more of the ode had been completed before the king's death and much more than the words ‘king’ and ‘William’ was amended to suit a succeeding monarch of a different gender and nationality. It is only in the ode's last two movements (from f. 18r) that the text deals with the topic of a female monarch. On the surface, the remaining text appears to be non-gender-specific and to work equally well for either William or Anne.

Three distinct batches of twelve-stave music paper, as defined by their rastrologies, are identifiable in the manuscript. Their dispersal throughout the work, analysed in tandem with watermarks and evidence of textual emendation, holds the key to unlocking the revision process undertaken by poet and composer. As illustrated in Table 1, two of these types of paper (A and B) have pages ruled in two sets of six staves, whereas the third type (C) is ruled in three sets of four staves.Footnote ²² Table 2 shows that type A is found most frequently in the manuscript, and it is on these folios that all textual changes were made. Therefore type A represents the original batch of paper, used when the ode was designed for William III. Types B and C are found in insertion and/or replacement pages added to the manuscript after the king's death. The nine watermarks in the main body of the manuscript align with these three paper types (see Tables 2 and 3), confirming that the manuscript was assembled in two distinct stages. Folios with watermarks depicting a lion and unicorn (watermarks 2, 3, 7 and 8) are Dutch in origin and were sold extensively on the London market.Footnote ²³ The final folio of the manuscript, which is not ruled with staves and was presumably added as a wrapper some time after the completion of the manuscript, bears the watermark of a shield. As might be expected, this watermark does not match others in the rest of the manuscript.

Table 1

Paper types in GB-Lbl, Add. 31456

Table 2

Distribution of paper types and watermarks in GB-Lbl, Add. 31456

Table 3

Description of watermarks in GB-Lbl, Add. 31456

In instances where the underlaid text has been changed, examinations of rastrology and watermarks lead to some surprising conclusions. The original version of the text for Inspire Us Genius of the Day as it was written for William III does not appear to survive in any medium. Only part of this original version, labelled ‘Version A’ in Table 4, can be recovered from the altered text for Queen Anne (‘Version B’) in Eccles's manuscript. A hitherto unidentified third version of the poem, surviving in print without the music, is held at Lambeth Palace Library (‘Version C’).Footnote ²⁴ The first instance of any changes to the text occurs on f. 9r. This is the third page of ‘From this happy day’ (fols 8–15; music paper A), the fourth and largest movement in the ode, beginning with three voices punctuated by string accompaniment and ending with a chorus. The movement contains the first appearance of Anne's name in the ode; preceding movements use neither the monarch's name nor the word ‘queen’. The original opening lines of ‘From this happy day’, visible when the manuscript is viewed under ultraviolet light, read as follows:

Table 4

Three versions of the text to Inspire Us Genius of the Day

Not only the words ‘William’ and ‘king’ were altered in the reworking of this movement, but also the word ‘Europe’. The amended text reads as:

Similar changes were made to the text on f. 10v, where the tenor sings ‘Her reign yields greater blessings’ simultaneously with the bass's line ‘Her reign gives greater blessings’ (my italics). As the repetition of the line on f. 11r uses ‘gives’, it is clear that Eccles neglected to correct ‘yields’ in the tenor part on f. 10v (Figure 3). In fact, the only word in the line that appears not to have changed is ‘greater’; under ultraviolet light, it is evident that ‘Her Reign’ was originally ‘Our Hero’.

Though most of ‘From this happy day’ is written on type A paper, f. 11 is on type B. This single folio includes no textual alterations, indicating that it is a freshly written insertion. Presumably the original folio, which must have been on type A paper, was damaged or made unusable owing to textual changes. Indeed, the alterations to the preceding page, f. 10v, caused a hole in the paper where the ink had to be scratched away. The final three folios of the movment (fols 13–15) are on type C paper. This would appear to be an insignificant discrepancy but for the fact that the next movement, ‘No, Albion, thou can'st ne'er repay’, begins on the reverse of the final folio (f. 15v) and includes similar textual emendments. On f. 16v ‘Anna[’]s’ is written in pencil above the vocal line as a reminder to change the text, showing that the alterations were a well-planned exercise (Figure 4, third system). Under ultraviolet light, it is clear that ‘Anna’ and ‘Anna's’ were originally ‘Lion’ and ‘Lion's’. As expected, this amendment does not occur on the opening folio of the movement (f. 15v, music paper C), where ‘Anna’ appears without alteration. Additional details of the revision process are revealed through a closer analysis of the movement's text.

Figure 4

Eccles, Inspire Us Genius of the Day, reprise of ‘No, Albion, thou can'st ne'er repay’ with emendations visible to the word ‘Anna’. ‘Anna’ is also visible in pencil above staves 7 and 10. GB-Lbl, Add. 31456, f. 16v. Used by permission

The first section of ‘From this happy day’ finishes on the bottom half of f. 13r, with a substantial section left blank and an incomplete bar with custodes showing the following notes (Figure 5, where the scoring is for two violins, tenor violin, tenor and bass voices and continuo). On f. 13v a section for chorus begins and continues to f. 15r. The text of this new section reads:

Figure 5

Eccles, Inspire Us Genius of the Day, end of first section of ‘From this happy day’, showing incomplete bar with custodes. GB-Lbl, Add. 31456, f. 13r. Used by permission

This is a decidedly more feminine text than has been encountered earlier in the ode. Extolling King William's virtue as being greater than the leaves and flowers of spring does not figure his previous birthday odes, and indeed the word ‘virtue’ only appears in odes from this period when the text refers to a female. No alterations have been made to the text of this section, though it uses the feminine possessive ‘her’, indicating that fols 13–15 were newly added following William's death because the original textual content was deemed inappropriate for a female monarch. We have no way of knowing whether the music for this chorus (presumably on leaves of music paper A) was the same as that originally written for William III, or whether the music was composed anew when Eccles was furnished with new text by Motteux. In any case, the fact that Eccles deemed it necessary to insert new pages suggests that the original text was very different from the revision. It also explains why amendments were made to the reprise of ‘No, Albion, thou can'st ne'er repay’ but not to the first page, which had to be rewritten on f. 15v, the reverse of a newly added folio of music paper C. Folios 16–17, as would be expected, are leaves of music paper A. The distribution of paper types and the substitution of the name ‘Anna’ throughout the rest of the movement verify that movement 5 (‘No Albion thou can'st ne'er repay’) was written before the closing section (fols 13v–15r) of movement 4 (‘From this happy day’).

Movement 6, ‘Firm as a rock’ (bottom of fols 18r–21v), also reveals some interesting clues as to Eccles's method of reworking the ode. Folio 17r (music paper A) bears the final sung line of ‘No Albion thou can'st ne'er repay’ (with the amendment ‘Anna’) and the movement's concluding ritornello, which carries on to f. 17v (also music paper A) and to the top of f. 18r (music paper C). The paper type changes in f. 18 because ‘Firm as a rock’ begins here. No textual amendments were made to this movement, which contains words lending themselves exclusively to a female ruler. This, in combination with the presence of music papers B and C, reveals that ‘Firm as a rock’ was newly added following William's death. It might be argued that a sixth movement had not even been begun at the time of the king's demise. However, had there been no ‘original’ sixth movement, there would have been empty staves at the bottom of an original f. 18r (with music paper A) that could have been used for the copying of ‘Firm as a rock’. That a new sheet was needed implies that other music originally followed the concluding ritornello of ‘No Albion thou can'st ne'er repay’.

At this point it is easy to see that recovery of the entire original text for William III is impossible. It is also evident that much more of the ode had been composed by the time of the king's death than has hitherto been thought. In fact, close examination of the seventh movement, ‘Great Queen go on’ (fols 22–29), reveals that the entire ode had probably been completed by the time of William's demise. The bulk of this final movement is written on music paper B, on which there are no textual amendments. Because the queen is mentioned repeatedly from the opening, there can be no doubt that much of ‘Great Queen go on’ was written afresh and inserted into the work. However, the final three folios of the movement (fols 27–29) revert to music paper A. Most significantly, as can be seen in Figure 6, a textual amendment was made to change the word ‘he’ to ‘is’ on fols 27r–27v. Thus the end of the ode had been completed by the time of William's death, with a text originally reading

Figure 6

Music Paper A, showing textual emendation to the word ‘is’ on staves 6–9. GB-Lbl, Add. 31456, f. 27v. Used by permission

A terminal flourish at the closing bar on f. 29v confirms that the ode existed as a complete work for William before it was reworked for Anne.

It seems most unlikely that this birthday ode, if intended for 1702, would have been completed (in its earliest form) before the king's death in March 1702, given that his birthday was not until November. It is therefore far more likely that Inspire Us Genius of the Day was originally intended for performance at the king's birthday celebration in November 1701. But, as things turned out, the king was not in London for his birthday in 1701.Footnote ²⁵ The celebration of his return from Holland and of his birthday (in his absence) was reported in both The London Gazette and The Post Man:

Inspire Us Genius of the Day, having already been composed in its entirety (and possibly even rehearsed), must have been shelved for 1701. With no birthday celebration in 1702, the ode remained unperformed until it was reworked for the first celebration of Queen Anne's birthday, on 6 February 1703.

It must have been Eccles, as Master of the Musick, who decided to alter the ode and advised Motteux what textual changes were needed. This collaboration allowed them to save most of a fully composed ode, sparing Eccles the onerous task of writing new music. As we shall see, their choices of textual emendations raise issues of creative authority on the parts of poet and composer while offering insight into the mechanics of monarchical image projection and its relationship to the fashioning of authorial identity.

REGIME, REVISION AND CREATIVE AUTHORIAL IDENTITY

In revising Inspire Us Genius of the Day, Eccles and Motteux faced the task not only of rewriting an ode, but also of rewriting a regent. With the change in monarch came a change in regime, the tone of which was easily identifiable in the new queen's first address to parliament, in the choices of psalms, anthems and readings at her coronation, and even in her personal appearance.Footnote ²⁷ Poet and composer were here salvaging an ode originally written for a male monarch of foreign birth who was lauded as a military hero, now applying it to a female ruler born and raised in England whose gender prevented her from being anything other than pious, virtuous and devout.Footnote ²⁸ Their decisions were made under the dual pressures of presenting their individual selves publicly as competent in their respective arts while simultaneously concealing the fact that the work had originally been intended for William III. The changes made to Inspire Us Genius under these pressures help illuminate the complexity of creative ownership in such a collaborative endeavour. Moreover, the version of the poetic text published separately from the music (‘Version C’ in Table 4) provides a window into the differing public images projected by William III and Queen Anne and highlights the distinctions between an ode as a performance, as a printed song and as a printed poem divorced from its music. As we shall see, this printed poem allows us to draw conclusions that would not have been possible on the basis of the autograph manuscript alone.

The first textual alteration to the manuscript on f. 9r (‘William's birth and Europe's joys’ to ‘Anna's birth and Britain's joys’) is surely not insignificant. Although heralded as the saviour of the Protestant faith, William III was still a foreigner whose public image in Britain, especially after Queen Mary's death, had depended on his status as a European hero. In contrast, Queen Anne emphasized her Englishness or ‘Britishness’ from the beginning of her reign. There are many examples of her ‘English’ self-fashioning, such as the reference to Elizabeth I in her first address to Parliament on 11 March 1702, when the new queen declared ‘I know my heart to be entirely English’.Footnote ²⁹ Such references succeeded in portraying Anne as having descended from a long line of English monarchs, in stark contrast to her predecessor, whose documented reluctance even to speak the English language resulted in a closed and alienated court in the latter part of his reign.Footnote ³⁰ Anne also adopted Elizabeth's motto, Semper eadem, as her own. This choice is significant for more than her self-fashioning as Elizabeth, however, as its meaning – literally ‘Ever the same’ – suggested the image of the new queen rising, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of her predecessor. It also allowed an escape from an alternative view of her: as a queen indebted to the Glorious Revolution and her betrayal of her father, James II, in favour of William and Mary. Anne's imitation of Elizabeth and pride in her Englishness were certainly not lost on her subjects.

The changes made on f. 11r demonstrate a similar awareness of King William's status as a hero and the incongruity of such a depiction for the new monarch. The phrase ‘Our Hero greater . . . yet’ was amended to ‘Her reign yields/gives greater Blessings yet’, though it does not match the original syllabic setting. As we have seen, Eccles apparently first changed the second syllable of ‘Hero’ to ‘yields’ and later to ‘gives’, but forgot to alter ‘yields’ to ‘gives’ on staff 10. Unfortunately, the words that originally followed ‘Our Hero’ in the earlier version of the ode are irretrievable. Yet it is clear that the image of the king as a war hero, so common in his earlier birthday odes, was continued in Inspire Us Genius and that the changes both suited Queen Anne's gender and discouraged recognition of the ode as a reworking. They also allowed Eccles to avoid substantial alterations to the music he had written, and it is therefore tempting to suppose that it was he who exercised creative authority over the reworking, with Motteux simply furnishing words suitable for the new monarch and the pre-existing music. This reverses the usual practice of the poet providing the composer with a text to be set to music (as would presumably have been the case when the ode was originally written for William III).Footnote ³¹ However, the procedure of fitting words to pre-existing music was extremely common, as in the setting of broadside poetry ‘to the tune of’ a well-known ballad melody. It can also be observed in the long-standing practice of fitting contrafactum English texts to Latin motets.Footnote ³² As Rebecca Herissone has shown, a similar practice is observable in the serial recomposition of Carminum praeses. This Oxford Act song shows evidence of creative input from at least two and probably three composers and also evidence of recycling for different events on at least two occasions over a period of twenty-five years.Footnote ³³ This is in contrast to assumptions that occasional pieces such as this were performed only once. Carminum praeses has an obvious similarity to Inspire Us Genius, which was reused in a new context with much recycled music.

The third movement of the ode, ‘Blest day’ (fols 7r–7v; printed version in Figure 2), includes an equally interesting case of alteration. No textual changes were made to this movement for solo tenor voice and continuo, and as a result its message lies less comfortably than the rest of the work, as can be seen from the following lines:

This verse, with its invocation of Phoebus (either the god Apollo or the sun), is clearly a male reference suitable for King William's birthday. As Andrew Pinnock has argued, Phoebus was a particularly important image for Charles II.Footnote ³⁴ It is likely that the invocation of Phoebus in Inspire Us Genius was an effort to legitimize King William's rule by association with a familiar image. While comparisons of the monarch to the sun and mythological gods are certainly not uncommon in poetry for both kings and queens, it is most unusual for a male god to be invoked in an ode for a female monarch. The retention of this distinctly male-oriented verse for Queen Anne is justified in the printed form of the poem (Version C) by the following lines, absent from the musical setting:

These lines effectively sidestep the original comparison of the monarch with Phoebus by saying that Queen Anne's birthday vies with that of the sun god. Moreover, the choice to alter the printed poem but to retain the original text unaltered in the musical setting demonstrates that the printed medium held more risk of betraying the ode's status as a reworking. It is worth noting, too, that when ‘Blest day’ appeared with the music in Eccles's printed editions of 1703 and 1704 it was presented without any textual changes under the title ‘A Song Sung by Mr Elford on Her Majestys Birth Day’ (see Figure 2). This suggests that the reference to Phoebus was expected to be overlooked not only by the audience present at the ode's performance but also by those who purchased the printed ode songs simply on account of the words being set.

Though the emendations to this ode could be seen as merely practical – certain phrases were very obviously inappropriate for a female monarch – the addition of verses to the printed version of the text raises issues of authorial intention and self-fashioning. Published items such as these are essentially a performance manifest in print, and the changes made for printed texts reveal authors’ intentions altering with the medium. This is evident in a verse inserted before the final chorus in the printed version of Inspire Us Genius of the Day:

The verse fits well with this section of the ode, especially given the reference to Pallas in the preceding movement (‘Our Pallas thus appears in Arms’). It is uncertain exactly when Motteux decided to include this verse, which does not appear in Version B as set to music by Eccles. It is possible that, for the reworking of the ode for Queen Anne, Motteux provided Eccles with the revised text as it later appeared in print. If this was the case, then authority over the presentation of the work for performance, through setting the text to music, lay with Eccles. Alternatively, Motteux might have revised the text for publication, inserting the verse after Eccles had set the rest of the ode, so as to improve its presentation and reception as a stand-alone poem. However, given other discrepancies between Versions B and C, highlighted in boldface in Table 4, it is likely that Motteux did undertake some revision of the poem for publication. These alterations are small but significant, for many of the revised lines are more alliterative, articulate and rhythmical for the reader than those in Version B. While this does not change the fact that Eccles had authority over the performance version of the ode, it does show that two different instances of authorial self-fashioning are at work here. Eccles, in setting the text, must have been concerned with writing music that would appeal to the theatre-going public (as is reflected in the style of the solo songs). In addition, there can be little doubt that the composer had the ode's future printed form in mind while reworking it. None of Motteux's small changes appear in the printed versions of Eccles's songs. It seems clear, therefore, that in both versions of the ode, Eccles presents himself as a composer conscious of the musical rather than poetic value of his work. He probably divided Motteux's original poem into movements, altered or rearranged words and lines, and possibly omitted verses as he saw fit to serve the musical setting.

Motteux's printed text shows a second authority, revealing that the poet also understood the subservience of poetry to music and tried to improve the ode text for publication. In doing so, he was attempting to be viewed as a poet of merit. He knew that the ode poem as set to music – with division into movements, word repetition and alterations to word order – obscured the poem as it would be read or declaimed as poetry. Despite the existence of Eccles's printed songs and the public's knowledge of the ode in performance, Motteux substantially altered his poem in order to fashion and protect his reputation as a poet. Had his printed poem included a preface, its sentiments might have echoed those of Thomas D'Urfey in his New Poems (1690):

Even though the ‘Odes and Songs’ published by D'Urfey were well received when they were performed before the ‘Town’, he is conscious of the fact that this reception may not transfer to the ‘rough and unpolish'd’ manner of the very same works when presented in isolation from the music. This may be precisely what Motteux was attempting to avoid by revising the poem of Inspire Us Genius of the Day for publication. Eccles's publication of songs from the ode did not, of course, take such things into consideration. In this respect, it is significant that only he is named in the print, not Motteux, representing the composer's rather than the poet's authorial identity. Conversely, both poet and composer are named in the published poem, with Eccles's name appearing first and in a bigger font size than Motteux's. The primary function of this birthday ode – to be performed as a musical work – is underlined when the composer is prioritized in this way, as is the idea that the text is subservient to the music. Taken together, the two publications reveal how differing presentations of authorial identity can affect perceptions of a work.

We have seen that Inspire Us Genius of the Day has a more complex history of revision and reworking than previously recognized. Analysis of paper types, stave rulings and textual emendations uncovers much about the process of transforming an ode written for King William III into one suitable for Queen Anne, a process informed not only by differences in gender, but also by the monarchs’ efforts to mould their public image. Meanwhile, two interrelated cases of authorial self-fashioning are revealed through textual discrepancies between the printed poem and songs. Inspire Us Genius of the Day thus emerges as a uniquely evolving cultural artefact of the late Stuart period.