our Cathedrals? where the "fit masters," the "careful oversight," "the frequent examination ?*"

One objection on the part of the Presbyterian assailants was the performance of music in Cathedrals by a separate and paid Choir, and the great excellence of the music and its exquisite performance were also attacked. Those who desire to know what the Cathedral Service then was, in matter and in manner, in material and exccution, need only call to remembrance the well-known passage from 'Il Penseroso,' which records its effect upon Milton's mind when a boy at St. Paul's school. To this objection Dr. Hacket thus replies:

"I have heard that the service of Cathedral churches giveth offence to divers for the exquisiteness of the music, especially that in late years it is not edifying nor intelligible to the hearers. If it serve rather to tickle the ear than affect the heart with godliness, we wish the amendment of it. But the solemn praise of God in church music hath ever been accounted pious and laudable; yea, even that which is compounded with art and elegancy: for St. Paul speaks as if he had newly come from the quire of Asaph, when he requireth us to praise God in psalms, in hymns and in spiritual songs. And give me leave, I beseech you, to speak thus much for the quire-men and their faculty of music, that they maintain a science which is in no small request with divers worthy gentlemen. By the education of choristers from their childhood in that faculty, you have musicians that come to great perfection in that skill-few others but prove to be no better than minstrels or fiddlers."

If we can so far give the reins to our fancy as to conceive a similar objection being urged now,-if we can imagine a present Canon of St. Paul's to be publicly attacked on account of the "exquisite performance" of the Service,-his reply would not adopt in spirit or substance the tone of his predecessor, but would rather (if it spoke the truth) assume something like the following form:-" You make the exquisite performance of its music a ground of objection to the Cathedral Service. I can only reply, that we have done our best to degrade and destroy it: if it yet retain any portion of beauty or grandeur, the fault is not ours. We have alienated the revenues of the Choir,-we have reduced its number,

• Those who desire information on this point, or seek an answer to this question, are referred to the Correspondence and Evidences respecting the Ancient Collegiate School attached to St. Paul's Cathedral,' 1832. It is hardly necessary to remark, that the Institution known by the name of St. Paul's School has no connection with the Cathedral, but is solely governed and ordered, under Dean Colet's will, by the Company of Mercers.

even from the few that remain we require only occasional attendance, the voices of half our clerks are in another parish,'-we pay them less than our grooms. We have silenced the Minor Canons, for, if by accident any are appointed who are able to sing, we never tax their musical powers. We expend nothing in the purchase or copying of music,-we discourage the publication of works intended for the Church Service, we have rendered it impossible that the first compositions for the Church should be performed. What more can we do?"

It remained only to legalize these acts of injustice and usurpation, which had hitherto been committed by the mere exercise of superior might. Whenever the right of the Choirs to their endowments had been contested in a court of law or equity, the result had been to restore and confirm them. Witness the suits of the Dublin Choir and that of Bangor with the Dean and Chapter of their respective Cathedrals. The contest in the latter case was not entered upon until every method of petition and remonstrance had been found hopeless. Lord Eldon discouraged the prayer of the petitioning Choir; the suit was protracted, at a ruinous cost, for eight years; but the case of the petitioners was too strong to be resisted, and they obtained a decree in their favour. It happened, in this case, that Dr. Pring was a man of courage and of substance; but those only who have lived in a Cathedral town can understand the position of an organist, minor-canon or lay-clerk who dares to array himself, however just his quarrel, against his capitular superiors. He is, from that moment, as far as they can effect it (and they generally can effect it), doomed to poverty and misery. Aware of the illegality of their acts, these bodies have in some instances habitually guarded themselves against any legal scrutiny or question of them, by requiring of every member of a choir, on his induction, an undertaking that he will not prosecute any claim beyond that of his agreed and stipulated salary,-a precaution somewhat supererogatory from stipendiaries of fourteen shillings a-week. The Second Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as we have stated, was made during Lord Melbourne's administration, and we proceed to examine its treatment of Cathedral Music. This is no agreeable duty, since every paragraph

connected with this subject betrays either a total disregard of truth, an insidious suppressio veri, or such a dexterous employment of language in order to disguise and distort facts, that the largest exercise of candour can scarcely admit even the discreditable plea of ignorance to be urged in its writer's behalf. We shall take the paragraphs as they stand, adding a running commentary.

"Our attention has been drawn to the condition of those "ministers in the Cathedral and Collegiate Churches who are "known by the names of Minor Canons, Vicars-Choral, Priest"Vicars, or Chaplains. The Service is performed by them, 66 or some of them, in all these churches, twice and in some "three times a-day, throughout the year."-Second Report, p. 13.

It is kept out of sight that, whereas the Statutes of all Cathedrals require the daily attendance of every member of the choir, clerical as well as lay, and require also that every clerical member should be a competent singer, such members in fact only give their attendance in turn, that very few of them can sing, and that scarcely any do sing. The service, as required by the Statutes, is not performed.

"The number in St. Paul's Cathedral is twelve; in others "there are eight, six, four, and in the Collegiate Church of "Manchester two."-Ibid.

In St. Paul's it is true that twelve persons erroneously styled Minor Canons receive a salary; but it is equally true that there is not one who gives any evidence of his being qualified to hold his office by a discharge of its duties. This assertion admits of easy verification. Let any person walk into St. Paul's, morning or afternoon, and satisfy himself whether twelve Minor Canons are there, assisting in the performance of the anthem and service for the day. He must have better fortune than has fallen to our lot for some years past if he ever find one. The residents in Cathedral towns can, in like manner, as casily ascertain how far the provincial corresponds to the metropolitan practice.

"The emoluments are almost as various as the numbers. "At Durham some of the Minor Canons receive as much as " 170l. a-year; in some churches they have not more than "301.; but the majority receive from 50l. to 70l."—Ibid.

This sentence confirms what we stated on a former occasion, that the salaries of Minor Canons, as such, have long been little more than nominal. For "as much" we ought to read "as little." The Minor Canonries at Durham were well endowed before the time of the Reformation with lands and houses, which were then confirmed to their existing and all future occupants by law, and have been since wrested from them by force or fraud. The addition of mockery to injustice might have been spared.

"In consequence of the smallness of their salaries, in almost "all Cathedrals, we find a prevalent custom of giving to these "ministers Chapter-livings, which they hold together with "their places in the Cathedral."—Ibid.

If the whole truth had been related in this sentence, it would have run thus:-In consequence of the injustice which successive capitular bodies have exercised towards the Minor Canons of all Cathedrals, by despoiling them of those endowments which were bequeathed or given for their especial maintenance, it has been found necessary to resort to another exercise of power, equally illegal, unjust and arbitrary; and the incomes of the Minor Canons have been made up by Chapter-livings, that is, by imposing on them a duty wholly incompatible with that which the Statutes of every Cathedral require,-daily attendance and assistance in its choir.

"We are of opinion that the interests both of the Cathe"drals and of the parishes would be consulted by retaining "only so many of these ministers as are sufficient for the "service of the Cathedrals, and giving them such salaries as

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may preclude the necessity of their holding benefices toge"ther with their offices in the Cathedral."-Ibid.

Truly this is a piece of as cool and self-complacent effrontery as can well be imagined. Disregarding all the intentions of pious and liberal founders, casting to the winds the Statutes of every Cathedral in the kingdom, in defiance of the concur rent opinion of the ablest advocates of the Church, and forgetful of the real and important duty which had devolved upon them, these degenerate successors of Parker, Hooker, Taylor and Tillotson*, decked in their little brief authority, pro

*To the influence of Tillotson we owe the appointment of "Composer to the King," and therefore many of the labours of Blow, Croft, Greene, Travers, Boyce and the other eminent musicians who until the present time successively held it.

claim their design to fashion according to their own notions of expediency the venerable and admirable structure of the Cathedral Service,-how, will be seen hereafter. "Does "the sagacity of an enlightened age," asks the author of the 'Apology for Cathedral Service," "consist in finding out that, "by the prodigality of our ancestors, more servants have been "assigned to the Most High than are needful, and in so conducting Cathedral Service, for which munificent provision "had been made by large-souled men, as if it had to look for its "support to the penurious grudgers of church-rates,-beings "who would have exclaimed, when the precious box of spike❝nard was poured out, 'Why was this waste?"" The utilitarian standard, by which it was intended to measure and cut down those establishments, is not here announced; but the spirit of this sentence sufficiently indicates its probable scanty dimensions. Did it never occur to these modern lights of the Church, that the number of "ministers sufficient for the service of the Cathedral" was probably as well known to those who apportioned and endowed them as to themselves? Do they imagine that by such endowments it was intended to create a number of useless sinccures in the shape of Minorcanonrics, or that every Priest-vicar was not, as he was designed to be, a daily labourer in the house of prayer? They probably know better, but such is the impression attempted and designed to be conveyed in this sentence.

The origin and effect of a similar ecclesiastical commission for Ireland was thus justly described in the Times' newspaper :

"

Thus, then, the matter stands. A remedy is wanted for abuses which have crept into the temporalities of the Church. Endowments intended to secure certain definite and very necessary ministrations find their way into the pockets of persons who never perform them. What is the remedy? Is the trust enforced? Does the Legislature step in and restore the misappropriated endowment to its proper use? Does it compel the man who receives the money to insure the performance of the duty? Neither the one nor the other. No, it appoints a Commission, which abolishes altogether any connexion between the payment and the trust. It takes the money into its own hands, and lumps it all together, with other similar gains, into a central fund, to be disposed of by itself. The local endow ment for the local purpose is swamped, and nothing is substituted for it. It is handed over to this central board, who are to apply it, not by any means for the purpose of the original foundation, but as the said Commis