Excerpt from English Minstrelsie, Vol. 5 of 8: A National Monument of English Song This man was Thomas Britton, who had been born at either Higham Ferrers, or Welling borough, in Northamptonshire, and apprenticed as a boy to a vendor of small coals in St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, for seven years. At the end of his apprenticeship Britton set up for himself in a house at'the north-east corner of Jerusalem Passage, on the site now occupied by the Bull's Head Inn. The house was small, but it was provided with a stable or outhouse, convenient for his purpose. It was divided into two stories the lower he appropriated as his coal-shop, the upper was approached by a ladder-like staircase from the outside, and consisted of a long low room, for which at first he had no use. But Britton, obliged for his maintenance to dispense small sea-coal by the bushel, had a soul for something above trade. He was an enthusiastic lover of music, and it became his custom to assemble other devotees of harmony and sweet melody, to associate in his loft, and there spend pleasant hours in music. His hut wherein he dwells, says Edward Ward, * who was Britton's neighbour, which has long been honoured with such good company, looks without side as if some of his ancestors had happened to be executors to old snarling Diogenes, and that they had carefully transplanted the Athenian Tub into Clerkenwell for his house is not much higher than a canary pipe, and the Window of his state room but very little bigger than the bunghole of a cask. In these unpromising quarters the small-coal dealer established, in 1678, his celebrated Musical Club, from which all our concerts have sprung. Here, on every Thursday for nearly forty years, were held remarkable performances of vocal and instrumental music, which were a novelty at the time, awoke much interest, and drew to them eminent patronage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.