Note 323 — LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD (continued 5)

Keene recommended FitzGerald to read Roger North’s Memoir of Music. ‘You will see in North,’ he says, ‘that Old Rowley was a bit of a musician and sang “a plump Bass.” Can’t you hear him?’ His question to me was about the meaning of the word ‘fastously,’ which is not a musical term, but described the conduct of an Italian violinist, Nicolai Matteis, who gave himself airs, ‘and behaved fastously’ or haughtily. Barrow uses both ‘fastuous’ and ‘fastuously.’