Greg M. Silverman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > If indeed Mr. Purcell was offended that Queen Mary preferred a "vulgar > ballad" to one of his "refined" tunes, he had a lot of nerve, since he > was the author of many a vulgar ballad himself
I think Hawkins meant "vulgar" in the sense of "common" or "of the people" or "not genteel," as in "vulgar tradesman" or even "Vulgar Latin." We even have "vulgar fraction" (or "common fraction") as distinguished from "decimal fraction." Purcell did indeed compose more than his share of raunchy or salacious songs, though I can't think of any that were ballads. Howard Posner
