Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

cxxvi INTRODUCTION.
reached a seventeenth edition in 1728.' In 1652 he published a collection
of catches under the title of " Catch that Catch Can," 2 a book that
went through many editions, and of which the title was familiar to the
world in the early part of this century. On the 29th October, 1653, he
was " by consent of both Societys " admitted to be clerk of the Temple
p. 328 church,3 a post for which he received the wages of £2 6s. 8d. per
annum. He collected rents and burial fees, bound books, and was in
other respects employed by the house. He also about this time
wrote a history of music which went through ten editions, the last of
which was published by him in 1683. Henry Lawes, who was
among his friends, stood sponsor to his son Henry, who was baptized
in the Temple church in 1657. Samuel Pepys was also a customer
and a friend. In November, 1662, he bought of Playford the " Book of
Country Dances " and received from him as a friend " his Latin songs
of Mr. Deering's which he lately printed."4 In 1667 he bought
" Dugdale's H istory of the Inns of Court, of which there was but
a few saved out of the fire and Playford's new catch book that
hath a great many new fooleries in it." 5 A small MS. book to which
I have already referred, endorsed " The Clarke of the Temple
Church his Booke 1653," is among the miscellaneous papers of the
inn, and contains some curious information added by him as to the
Vol. L, p. 7 amounts receivable by the master, the reader, and the clerk, the distribution
of the communion money among the poor servants of the
inn, and other matters relating to the church. It had probably been
p. 258 passed on to him from the former clerk, Robert Burton, who was
appointed in May, 1636. Playford died in 1686, and was buried, as is
said, in the Temple Church. Henry Purcell and Dr. Blow attended his
funeral and Nahum Tate,the poet laureate, wrote an elegy on his death.
There was thus established in our midst an emporium for music
and musical instruments, for the sale of which Playford very quickly
acquired a monopoly, which the benchers encouraged by retaining
him in his shop and appointing him custodian of the church.
Among the various distractions of life prohibited by the puritan
party, music was not included, and many, including Cromwell himself,
1 " Dict. Nat. Biog.," vol. xlv., p. 416.
" A General History, etc.," vol. iv., p. 469.
" Miscellanea," xix., 55a.
L " D iary , " London, 1893, vol. ii., p. 398. 5 Ibid., vol. vi., p. 273.