of the Cawnpore division, where he remained until February 1807, when he temporarily succeeded Lake as commander-in-chief in India, but was soon after compelled to leave that country on account of his health. He received the thanks of the government and of the directors of the East India Company for his services, and was promoted lieutenant-general on 25 July 1810; but in the following year he retired from the service, on inheriting the family estates, with full rank, but no pay. He then devoted himself to collecting prints, and especially prints by old English engravers, and his collection was sold by auction in 1820 and 1821. He was one of the first collectors who made a speciality of what is called ‘grangerising,’ and the most important item in the 1820 sale was his copy of Gough's ‘British Topography,’ enlarged by him from two to fourteen volumes by the insertion of more than four thousand views and portraits. In 1821 his unequalled collection of Hollars was sold, and realised 505l. 16s. 6d. He died at his residence, Pull Court, Worcestershire, on 1 Dec. 1828, when, as he was never married, his Worcestershire estates devolved upon his brother, J. E. Dowdeswell, M.P. and master in chancery, and his Lincolnshire estates upon the Rev. Canon Dowdeswell of Christ Church, Oxford.
[Royal Military Calendar; Gent. Mag. February 1829; Bennett's History of Tewkesbury, Appendix 38, pp. 439–45.]
DOWLAND, JOHN (1563?–1626?), lutenist and composer, is said by Fuller (Worthies, ed. Nichols, ii. 113), on hearsay evidence, to have been born at Westminster. But in his own ‘Pilgrimes Solace’ (1612) is a song dedicated ‘to my louing countreyman, Mr. John Forster the younger, merchant of Dublin in Ireland,’ from which it might be understood that the composer was an Irishman. He seems to have been born in 1563, for in his ‘Observations belonging to Lute-playing,’ appended to his son Robert's [q. v.] ‘Varietie of Lute-lessons’ (1610), after mentioning a work by Gerle, which appeared in 1533, he goes on: ‘Myselfe was borne but thirty yeares after Hans Gerle's booke was printed,’ and in the address to the reader in his ‘Pilgrimes Solace’ (1612) he says, ‘I am now entered into the fiftieth yeare of mine age.’ About 1581 he went abroad, proceeding first to France and then to Germany, where he was well received by the Duke of Brunswick and the landgrave of Hesse. At the court of the former he became acquainted with Gregory Howet of Antwerp, and at that of the latter with Alessandrio Orologio—both noted musicians of their day. After spending some months in Germany, Dowland went to Italy, where he was received with much favour at Venice, Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, Florence, and other cities. At Venice in particular he made friends with Giovanni Croce. Luca Marenzio—the greatest madrigal writer of his day—wrote to him from Rome; his letter, dated 13 July 1595, is printed in the prefatory address to Dowland's first ‘Book of Songes.’ Dowland seems to have made several journeys on the continent. He was in England on 8 July 1588, when the degree of Mus. Bac. was conferred on him and Thomas Morley [q. v.] at Oxford. He seems to have received the same degree at Cambridge, some time before 1597, but there is no extant record of it, or of his having ever proceeded Mus. Doc., though he was sometimes called ‘Dr. Dowland’ by his contemporaries. In 1592 he contributed some harmonised psalm-tunes to Este's ‘Psalter.’ He must have gone abroad again, for the album of Johann Cellarius of Nürnberg (1580–1619), written towards the end of the sixteenth century, contains a few bars of his celebrated ‘Lachrymæ,’ signed by him. In this his name is spelt ‘Doland’ (Addit. MS. 27579). In 1596 some lute pieces by him appeared in Barley's ‘New Booke of Tabliture.’ This was apparently unauthorised, for he alludes to ‘diuers lute lessons of mine lately printed without my knowledge, falce and unperfect,’ in the prefatory address to the ‘First Booke of Songes or Ayres of Foure Partes, with Tableture for the Lute,’ which was published by Peter Short in 1597. This collection immediately achieved greater popularity than any musical work which had hitherto appeared in England. A second edition (printed by P. Short, the assignee of T. Morley) appeared in 1600; a third, printed by Humfrey Lownes, in 1606; a fourth in 1608; a fifth in 1613 (Rimbault, Bibliotheca Madrigaliana, p. 9), and the book was reprinted in score by the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1844. It is not difficult to account for its popularity, for its appearance marks a new departure in English music, which eventually led to that peculiarly national product, the glee. Dowland's songs are not madrigals, but simply harmonised tunes; they are not remarkable for contrapuntal skill; their charm and vitality consists entirely in their perfect melodic beauty, which causes them still to be sung more than the compositions of any other Elizabethan composer. In 1598 Dowland contributed a short eulogistic poem to Giles Farnaby's [q. v.] canzonets. In the same year, when he was at the height of his fame, appeared Barnfield's
