THE PSALM-SINGER'S AMUSEMENT, 1804-10

As the title-page notes, this work was 'printed at different times. Although the largest part is printed from plates first engraved for No. 108, William Billings's The Psalm-Singer's Amusement (Boston, 1781), Billings's name does not appear on the title-page, nor is there any reason to think that he brought the work out himself. A note signed by Clarence Brigham in an MWA copy explains:

This volume was probably issued in the present form. At least a dozen copies were found, identical with this, in the papers of the Howe family, descended from John Howe printer[,] Greenwich Mass. who published many musical books. Howe probably bought the plates & the remainders from Billings & issued this publication in this form.

An examination of copies supports Brigham's first point. It seems likely that when the decision was made to republish Billings's The Psalm-Singer's Amusement from the original plates, presumably after Billings's death, the publisher recognized that the work had several disadvantages. In the first place, it lacked a pedagogical introduction, which made it unsuitable for singing-school use. In addition, it contained chiefly long and elaborate pieces and was thus unsuitable for unskilled singers. Moreover, it lacked a core of well-known, widely printed and performed favorite pieces. Finally, the work's engraved page numbers would complicate adding an introduction to the beginning of the book.

          The compiler met the last of these disadvantages by letting the engraved page numbers (3-103, [1]) stand and by setting additional, typographically printed pages at the front of the book. These pages carried a brief introduction to the rudiments and a collection of psalm and hymn tunes, including several popular favorites. Thus, Billings's original collection, probably now more than two decades old, was transformed into something more suitable for the market to which the new compiler hoped to appeal.

          An examination of copies also shows that the compiler had obtained plates or remainders of works by Billings other than The Psalm-Singer's Amusement. Some extant copies contain Billings's THE BIRD and THE LARK (q.v., No. 103), printed from the same plates as the earliest issue (Boston, [1790]). Moreover, the typeset addition draws heavily upon No. 105, Billings's Music in Miniature (Boston, 1779). Of the twelve tunes attributed to Billings in this section, seven were being printed for the first time since their appearance in Music in Miniature - DANBURY, DELAWARE, EUROPE, FITCHBURG, HAMPSHIRE, JAMAICA, and MANSFIELD - and CRUCIFICTION was printed in the shortened form in which it had originally appeared there.

          The first twenty pages of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement (2 p.l., 1-8 'additional' p., 1-8 p.) and the also-anonymous Young Man's Instructive Companion, q.v. (No. 545), are remarkably similar. The title-pages differ only in the titles themselves and in the sentence at the bottom of the page explaining the irregularities of pagination. The title-page of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement explains: 'N.B. As this Book was printed at different times, the first eight pages are called Additional, lately prefixed to the succeeding pages. . . .  Identical wording and typography appear on the title-page of The Young Man's Instructive Companion, except that its 'additional pages are 'lately prefixed to the 16 original pages. . . .  The 'Index' on both pages is the same, as are the introductory matter occupying the rest of the two preliminary leaves, the music on p. 1-8 'additional,' and the original p. 1-8-including typographical quirks and errors. There is no question that the opening pages of the two works were printed from the same setting of type, perhaps at the same time. The resemblances between them suggests a printing strategy like that noted in the comparison of The Young Man's Instructive Companion with Solomon Howe's The Farmer's Evening Entertainment. (Cf. No. 274 & 543fl.)

          Further proof of the two works' relatedness is seen in the compiler's attempt to reconcile the two conflicting indexes of The Young Man's Instructive Companion. One printing of the title-page notes: 'Some errors in the Index last page, are corrected' on p. 1 'additional. The specified page carries a brief note of correction: 'N.B. The tune Dublin, mentioned in the index at the end, is omitted in this book, and Delaware is page 4th, and Hatfield page 5. and Fitchburg and Madrid page 2. The Psalm-Singer's Amusement carries exactly the same note on the same page, even though its 'index at the end' lists none of the tunes mentioned. The note is intended for The Young Man's Instructive Companion, not The Psalm-Singer's Amusement, its presence in the latter reveals that this portion of both books came from the same print shop at the same time.

          These facts, taken together with Brigham's note, quoted above, point to Solomon Howe as the probable compiler and to John Howe as the probable publisher of both The Psalm-Singer's Amusement and The Young Man's Instructive Companion. (See also the entry on the latter work, especially the explanation that precedes that entry.)

          Solomon Howe's relationship with Billings is a matter of recently discovered record. Neil T. Bunker has found a notebook in Howe's hand, which reports: 1778 May the 30: I came to Mr. Wm. Billings and June 22 went away again, in which time I worked for him a quarter of a month. 1778 June 11: received of Wm. Billings 6 P[ounds] Lawful Money. 1778 17 of June: in the Morn I cam again to Mr. William Billings to work. And the same page suggests that at about the same time Howe acquired a printing press for Billings: 'Wm. Billings Dr. [debtor] for a Press 5 P[ounds]. Furthermore, as Brigham's note shows, copies of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement were found in the personal effects of John Howe (1783-1845), Solomon Howe's son. The AAS Printers File lists John Howe as a printer in Greenwich, Massachusetts, between 1803 and 1818, leaving little doubt that he would have been capable of printing the engraved portion of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement. But Brigham's comment to the contrary, John Howe is known to have printed no other music, and he surely owned no complete font of music type. Had a music printer or a compiler with ready access to a music printer's services been responsible for bringing out this family of tunebooks, it seems likely that their various components would blend together more smoothly than they do. The incongruities suggest that the compiler or compilers planned the works away from the press, had sheets for them run off in quantity at one time, and were then forced to deal with the consequences of their planning when they bound the final copies. It has been shown elsewhere that Andrew Wright of Northampton set and probably printed the final eight pages of The Young Man's Instructive Companion. Perhaps he or some other experienced music printer printed that whole work, and hence also printed the typographical portion of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement.

          No publication date appears anywhere on any known issue of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement. Some hints about when it might have been issued, however, can be gained from its relationship to other works and from its musical repertory. As noted above, The Psalm-Singer's Amusement shares pages with The Young Man's Instructive Companion. The latter also shares pages with Solomon Howe's The Farmer's Evening Entertainment, and thus it most likely ap-peared some time after Howe's work, which bears an introductory date of April 1804. That marks the earliest possible date of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement. However, the binding date of what appears to be the earliest extant copy of The Young Man's Instructive Companion is probably after January 1810. That would suggest [1804-10] as a probable range of dates within which the two works were published.

          The music of The Psalm-Singer's Amusement provides no conclusive evidence about the date of publication, but hints at something closer to 1804 than 1810. The work contains the first printing of WESTBOROUGH, attributed to Abraham Wood, who died in Northborough, Massachusetts, on 6 August 1804. Although the tune could have been printed after Wood's death, it seems more likely that it was accepted for publication in The Psalm-Singer's Amusement before he died, or that his death suggested to the compiler that a previously unpublished tune by Wood would make a worthy addition to his work. It may also be significant that HATFIELD is attributed here to 'W. Billings, the only known printed attribution of that tune from the period, except for the one in Jeremiah Ingalls's The Christian Harmony (Exeter, 1805), where it is also assigned to Billings. If Ingalls took the attribution from a printed source, it could only have come from The Psalm-Singer's Amusement, which strengthens the argument for the 1804 date. (Ingalls's The Christian Harmony was first advertised for sale in March, 1805, and its introduction is dated November 1804.) On the other hand, Ingalls gives the title THE TRUE PENITENT to HATFIELD, and its setting differs enough from the version in The Psalm-Singer's Amusement to make it an unlikely musical source for Ingalls.

          The facts presently available support no precise date of publication nor do they establish a clear priority between The Psalm-Singer's Amusement and The Young Man's Instructive Companion. Therefore a range of dates [1804-10] is proposed here for both works. The apparent sequence of issues is indicated in the following entries.