The Second Book of Songs

The Second Book of Songs (alternative title: The Second Booke of Songs or Ayres of 2, 4 and 5 parts: with Tableture for the Lute or Orpherian, with the Violl de Gamba) is a book of songs composed by Renaissance composer John Dowland and published in London in 1600. He dedicated it to Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford.

The music is often described as lute songs, but this is somewhat misleading. The title page offer options regarding the instruments to be used. Also, Dowland tends to offer options as regards whether his songs are for a solo singer or not. All the songs in his First Booke of 1597 can be performed in a four-part version. Some of the songs in the Second Book can be sung in a variety of arrangements, although others are through-composed solo songs.

Many of the lyrics are anonymous. There has been speculation that Dowland wrote some of his own lyrics, but there is not any firm evidence for this. Fine knacks for ladies, in which the anonymous poet takes on the role of a pedlar, has been anthologised as an example of Elizabethan verse, for example in the The Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Dowland's first book had been printed by Peter Short. For the second book, Dowland turned to a different team - the publisher was George Eastland of Fleet Street (an obscure figure who appears to have known the Dowland family) and the printer was Thomas East, an experienced music printer. A fee had to paid to Thomas Morley, who held a patent (a monopoly of music printing) from 1598. Eastland was hoping for better sales than actually materialised. The First Booke had been a commercial success, going into several editions, while the Second Booke appears to have been less successful, at any rate it was not reprinted by Thomas East. However, it includes songs which have become among the best known among the composer's output.

On the title-page Dowland is correctly described as lutenist to the king of Denmark. The manuscript was delivered by Mrs Dowland, but as Dowland was living abroad, he was not able to liaise with the printer, and the proofs were read by two composers who were in London at the time, John Wilbye and Edward Johnson.

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