Mr. Isaac's Maggot: A Song History
"Mr. Isaac's Maggot" is an anonymous English country dance tune in triple time, written in 3/2 and given in C major in the Traditional Tune Archive's transcription.[1] It first appeared in the ninth edition of The Dancing Master, published by Henry Playford in 1695, where the word "maggot" in its title meant a whim or fancy.[1][2] The dance stayed in the Dancing Master through its last, eighteenth edition and was also printed in Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing-Master in 1718 and in later editions of that book.[1]
British, Embroidered picture of Queen Anne and the Duke of Marlborough, silk, wool, beads, isinglass and metal thread on satin, 1710. An embroidered picture of Queen Anne, whom Mr. Isaac taught to dance when she was a princess.
The title names Mr. Isaac, whom Jennifer Thorp's 2024 study The Gentleman Dancing-Master presents as the leading dancing master at the English court in the decades from Charles II to Queen Anne.[3] As Carol G. Marsh summarizes Thorp's research, "Mr. Isaac" was the professional name of Francis Thorpe, born about 1650, who is first documented as a dancer at the French royal court in 1670, probably moved to London in 1672, and, without an official royal post, taught Princess Anne, the future queen.[2] The same review notes that the 3/2 hornpipe rhythm of this tune, common in English country dances from the 1690s to the 1720s, also served four of Isaac's own dances or dance sections.[2] Sources differ on his dates: the Traditional Tune Archive gives about 1640 to 1721, and it reports that Moira Goff likewise identified him as Francis Thorpe, from the will of his uncle Jerome Gahory.[1] None of the sources consulted here says that Isaac himself made up this particular dance or tune.[1][2]
Cecil Sharp and George Butterworth described the dance in The Country Dance Book, Part IV (1916), setting it, from the 1695 edition, as a longways dance in duple minor sets for as many couples as wish to join.[4] The King's Noyse recorded the tune on The King's Delight (Harmonia Mundi, 1992).[1] Mark Gilston sets it for mountain dulcimer in English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2, a PDF collection published by Gilston that also includes "Dick's Maggot."[5]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Mr. Isaac's Maggot".
- Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music: "Carol G. Marsh, review of Jennifer Thorp, The Gentleman Dancing-Master".
- Clemson University Press: "The Gentleman Dancing-Master: Mr Isaac and the English Royal Court from Charles II to Queen Anne".
- Library of Dance: "Cecil J. Sharp and George Butterworth, The Country Dance Book, Part IV (1916)".
- Mark Gilston: "English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 2".
- Image: British, Embroidered picture of Queen Anne and the Duke of Marlborough, silk, wool, beads, isinglass and metal thread on satin, 1710. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.