In John Shepherd's book on the Common Prayer he remarks of the organ that the want cannot be supplied by any other kind of instrumental music. Violins, bassoons, flutes, etc. ought to be entirely excluded.1 But early in the nineteenth century organs must have become almost universal in English churches: a rough ignorant fellow defined the Church of England to be a "large building with an organ in it".2 There are many other incidental notes of organs in churches in these pages, which it is hoped may be found by looking in the index. account. MUSIC. Of the music performed in the churches we have no very full It is not likely to have been good in the country churches, except perhaps in Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it was made a study. The famous author of Brown's Estimate writes thus of the Church Music of his time: But while we justly admire the sacred Poetry of our Cathedral Service, must we not lament the State of it in our parochial Churches, where the cold, the meagre, the disgusting Dulness of STERNHOLD and his Companions, hath quenched all the poetic Fire and devout Majesty of the royal Psalmist. Our parochial Music, in general, is solemn and devout: Much better calculated for the Performance of a whole Congregation, than if it were more broken and elaborate. In Country Churches, wherever a more artificial Kind hath been imprudently attempted, Confusion and Dissonance are the general Consequence. * The Performance of our parochial Psalms, though in the Villages it be often as mean and meagre as the Words that are sung; yet in great Towns, where a good Organ is skilfully and devoutly employed by a sensible Organist, the Union of this Instrument with the Voices of a well-instructed Congregation, forms one of the grandest Scenes of unaffected Piety that human Nature can afford. The Reverse of this appears, when a Company of illiterate People form themselves into a Choir distinct from the Congregation. Here devotion is lost, between the impotent Vanity of those who sing, and the ignorant Wonder of those who listen.3 1 John Shepherd, A critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, London, Rivington, 1817, third ed. vol. i. p. 304. D. C. Lathbury, Correspondence on Church and Religion of William Ewart Gladstone, London, Murray, 1910, vol. i. p. 2. John Brown, Vicar of Newcastle, A Dissertation on Poetry and Music, London, Davis and Reymers, 1763, p. 213. At Selby Abbey, in 1751, Dr. Pococke, an Irish bishop, notes: This town is no corporation, and has neither clergyman nor justice of the peace in it. They chant all their service, except the litany; and the clerk goes up to the Communion table and stands on the Epistle side to make the responses, and they sing well not only the psalms but anthems.1 The expression Epistle side is unusual in England at this period. As Dr. Pococke was an Irish bishop he may have heard the phrase used by Roman Catholics in Ireland. The function of the parish clerk may also be noted. At a Berkshire village, Welford, in 1770 the church music is praised. I may here mention that at Welford their manner of singing Psalms is particularly pleasing. The tunes are solemn but exceedingly melodious. Mr. Archer's Steward, honest John Heath leads the set, with as agreeable a voice as I ever heard. The game keeper plays upon the Hautboy, and the gardener upon the Bassoon, and these, joined to eight or ten voices, form a Harmony that strikes the attention most amazingly.2 Dr. Horne, the Bishop of Norwich, while Dean of Canterbury states that In England, choral service was first introduced in this cathedral, and the practice of it long confined to the churches of Kent, from whence it became gradually diffused over the whole kingdom.3 More than twenty years after Dr. Brown, Dr. Vincent, who later on was Dean of Westminster, describes some part of the church music and the musicians. He says that in his time there were certain churches and chapels where they appropriated a band of singers "to chant the Psalms, Te Deum, &c. and who are competent enough to perform an Anthem with sufficient accuracy". These chapels, he tells us in a note, were Portland Chapel, the Octagon Chapel at Bath, now, in the twentieth century, turned into a furniture warehouse, and some churches, he adds uncertainly, in Lancashire; but here I have reason for thinking he was well informed as to the chanting of the psalms. He speaks highly of the Methodists' Music, and adds that "for one who has been drawn away from the Established Church by Preaching, ten have been induced by Music ".4 1 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 173. 2 Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family, Constables, 1907, vol. ii. p. 145. George Horne, Discourse II. on Church Music, in Works ed. by William Jones, Rivington, 1818, vol. iv. p. 25. 4 William Vincent, Considerations on Parochial Music, London, 1787, pp. 10 and 14. A second edition appeared in 1790. DISTURBING THE MINISTER. It is much to be desired that the faithful should join their voices to the praises of God and to those parts of the service which they are bidden to say with the minister; but a bad practice surviving even to our time had arisen in the eighteenth century or earlier of following in an undertone the prayers set apart for the priest. Thus the Spectator dislikes the Disturbance some People give to others at Church, by their Repetition of the Prayers after the Minister, and that not only in the Prayers, but also the Absolution and the Commandments fare no better, which are in a particular manner the Priest's Office.1 So many complaints throughout our period are made of this practice that it has not been possible, even if desirable, to note all that have been met with. It was also common in the mid-nineteenth century. James Ford, writing about 1825, notes it. When the Service begins, with your eye and not with your voice, reap along with the Minister; but never pretend to use any other prayers or meditations, whilst he is offering the prayers of the Church . . . what can be more improper than to hear them promiscuously absolve themselves and one another and thus take the Priestly office on themselves? 2 This disagreeable practice of saying the words of the service after the minister is not characteristic of Englishmen. In 1908, on Easter Even, at Naples, the man kneeling next to me followed aloud the blessing of the priest at the end of mass, and other parts of the Latin service which he knew by heart. SERMONS. The Puritans, it will be generally acknowledged, thought that the hearing of sermons was the main purpose of going to church; and inconsistently enough, such was their love of sermons, if they could hear a Church of England sermon without attending the Church of England service they would do so. There is an instance of this at Canterbury in 1640 when they complain of the sermon being no longer preached in the Sermon House, as they call the Chapter House, but in the Quire, so "that all that will partake of the Sermon, should of necessitie partake of their Cathedrall-Ceremonious-Altar Service "3 1 Spectator, No. 236. Friday, November 30, 1711. 2 James Ford, The new devout Communicant, Ipswich, 1825, p. 82. 3 Richard Culmer, Cathedrall News from Canterbury, London, Clifton, 1644, p. 2. After the Restoration there seems to have been a return to this practice in the North. At the Visitation of his diocese in 1703 by Dr. William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, he found at Ravenstondale a Saints-Bell, and the Bishop was told that "this Bell used to be rung in the Conclusion of the Nicene Creed; to call in Dissenters to Sermon ". They would not then be offended, either, by the sight of a surplice. Can this have been one of the motives for preaching the sermon in the black gown, and not in the surplice? It seems possible that this relic of Puritanism survived late in Yorkshire; for a description of the Sunday morning service written, it is pretended, before the battle of Waterloo, but plainly later, makes the Sunday school children in a Yorkshire parish come to church after the Litany and before the Communion service. It is more likely to be a relic of Puritanism than a humane wish not to fatigue the children with over-long devotions. Sir William Blackstone entered the Middle Temple in 1741 and there is this tradition of his experience: The sermons which Blackstone heard, when he came as a young man to London, were, he has told us, below the standard of the morality of Plato or Cicero. He himself gave it as his opinion, that, for all that they contained of religion, it would have been hard to say whether the preacher believed in the Koran, the Talmud, or the Bible.3 These statements of Blackstone are said to be based upon recollections of the table talk of Sir Robert Inglis. There is confirmation of this in the paragraphs that follow. How dissatisfied during our period churchmen were with the Whigs may be seen by a tract designed to show the variance between the book of Common Prayer and the Sermons of the Latitudinarians, such as Blackstone may have heard. The tract appeared in 1767, and in numerous editions later on, of which the last that I have been able to trace was printed at Lancaster in 1817. The Pulpit and the Reading Desk converse together. Reading Desk says to the Pulpit: You have long been my sore Enemy, a public and private Foe to me, and the whole congregation; and if it be considered, the Harm we have 1 Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlile + ... by William Nicolson late Bishop of Carlisle, edited by R. S. Ferguson, Cumberland Antiq. and Arch. Soc. London, Bell, 1877, p. 42. 2[Charlotte Bronte] Currer Bell, Shirley, ch. xxxiv. 3 3 John Campbell Colquhoun, William Wilberforce: his friends and his times, Longmans, 1866, p. 110, ch. vi. on Hannah More. * A dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. Nicoll, 1767. all sustained, it would appear what Favour has been shewn you in not stripping off your Gown, driving you out of the Church, and leaving you to follow another kind of Business. The Evil you have done, I am sure the whole World can never repair.1 The Whig shows how little he cares for the solemn assent and consent that he has given to the Book of Common Prayer, or regards the teaching of antiquity: PULPIT. Some have, indeed, great Veneration for the Fathers; but for my part, I have not. I prefer the Authority of later Times, and depend most on the Judgment of modern Authors. On the next page Pulpit makes some remarks depreciating the Bible. The Reading Desk asks in horror: READING DESK. The word of God a stale unpolished Piece of Antiquity ? 2 As to the assent given at Subscription. PULPIT. I look on the Words as mere Form; and I used them only as a necessary Step to Preferment. DESK. So, in order to get clear of Enthusiasm, you are not ashamed to own yourself a Hypocrite. Who do you think will ever trust you again, when you can so readily speak one thing and mean another? PULPIT. I regard nothing you are pleased to think of me. The Multitude is on my Side, not yours.3 The cynic may remark that the history of the eighteenth century repeats itself in the twentieth. This little book that went through so many editions may be looked upon as an important and interesting testimony to the value widely set upon the Prayer Book in the eighteenth century as a protection against latitudinarianism, and the low standard of morals involved in a repetition with the mouth of formulæ that are not believed in the heart. Even a præ-Christian poet had a higher sense of honour. His notion of duty was to hate as one would the gates of hell the man who concealed one thing in his heart and uttered another. The disgust which the laity felt at the behaviour of these men is attested by the wide circulation, during fifty years, of the little tract, which can hardly be accounted for if the readers were confined to the clergy. The unhappy state to which those were reduced who clung to their preferments in the Established Church instead of going out into the wilderness was thus described in the nineteenth century: 1A dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. Nicoll, 1767, p. 4. 3 ibid. |