ABSTRACT
Date and publication. An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell; Late Servant to his Majesty, and Organist of the Chapel Royal, and of St Peter’s Westminster. The Words by Mr. Dryden, and Set to Musick by Dr. Blow was first published as a separate folio by Henry Playford in 1696 (TC June); see Plate 4. In this volume, D.’s poem first appears separately (siglum: 1696a) on the verso of the title-page (A1V), and then again on 1–30, together with the musical setting by John Blow for two countertenors (or high tenors), two flutes (treble recorders) and continuo (siglum: 1696b). The poem was reprinted, without verbal change, as one of the prefatory poems in Orpheus Britannicus, the posthumous collection of Purcell’s songs published by Playford in 1698. The present text is based on 1696a, with an obvious misprint in l. 20 corrected from the (generally less accurate) 1696b. Obscene verses omitted from Dryden's translation of Juvenal, added in manuscript on a copy of the 1693 edition in the Henry E. Huntington Library, California. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315847931/93cd1b6c-c9e7-4bd1-85b4-fff4a2f465ca/content/pla24_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Reproduced by permission of the Librarian. Portraits of Juvenal and Persius from Decimus Junius Juvenalis, and Aulus Persius Flaccus Translated and Illustrated By Barten Holyday D. D. (Oxford, 1673). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315847931/93cd1b6c-c9e7-4bd1-85b4-fff4a2f465ca/content/pla24_2_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Private Collection. Illustration to Book I of Ovid's Metamorphoses from Pub. Ovidii Nasonis Operum Tom. 2 … studio B. Cnippingii (Amsterdam, 1683). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315847931/93cd1b6c-c9e7-4bd1-85b4-fff4a2f465ca/content/pla24_3_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Private Collection. Title page of An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell (London, 1696), from a copy in Leeds University Library. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315847931/93cd1b6c-c9e7-4bd1-85b4-fff4a2f465ca/content/pla24_4_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Reproduced by permission of the Librarian.
