William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life. Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a "contentious" issue among scholars. The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticized the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. After becoming the assignee of the composer and publisher Thomas Morley, Barley published Anthony Holborne's Pavans, Galliards, Almains (1599), the first work of music for instruments rather than voices to be printed in England. His partnership with Morley enabled him to claim a right to the music publishing patent that Morley held prior to his death in 1602. Some publishers ignored his claim, however, and many music books printed during his later life gave him no recognition.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barley

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1065:

London's Westminster Abbey was consecrated, becoming the traditional place of coronation for English, and now Monarchs of the Commonwealth Realms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Abbey

1768:

Taksin the Great was crowned king of the newly established Thonburi Kingdom in the new capital at Thonburi, present-day Thailand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taksin

1836:

At the Old Gum Tree near present-day Adelaide, Royal Navy Rear–Admiral John Hindmarsh read a proclamation establishing the British province of South Australia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australia

1973:

U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law, a wide-ranging environmental law designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_Act

1989:

In one of Australia's most serious natural disasters, a 5.6 ML earthquake struck Newcastle, New South Wales, killing 13 people and injuring more than 160 others, and causing an estimated AUD$4 billion in damages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Newcastle_earthquake

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

fiddle (v): 1. To play aimlessly. 2. To adjust in order to cover a basic flaw or fraud etc. 3. To play the violin http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fiddle

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. --Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay%2C_1st_Baron_Macaulay