peace, and there is a remanent felicity in the very memory of these spiritual delights, which we there enjoyed, as antepasts of heaven and consignations to an immortality of joys"."

And we find even the Unitarian preacher warming into eloquence as the Cathedral Service presents itself to him :"The natural sentiments of worship have been the parents of all that is great in sacred art. Architecture, music, painting and poetry first allied themselves with religion, not condescendingly, but reverently: to receive from it their noblest consecration. They put themselves submissively into its hands, willing to take whatever form its plastic power should impress, so they might but serve as its outward voice and manifestation. The Cathedral aisle sprung up and closed over the house of prayer: and Christendom feeling that the mere inarticulate speech of man was harsh when it took up the Holy name, adopted Music as its natural language†.”

Before we proceed to a further analysis of the labours of this Ecclesiastical Commission, it will be expedient to refer to the controversy which was so long maintained in the Church respecting the use and fit employment of music in its service. Inasmuch as the battle has now to be fought anew, we ought to understand the ground which both parties then occupied, -who were the respective combatants,-their names, station, associates and design,-in order that it may be apparent to which section of them the present assailants of Cathedral music bear the closest resemblance. It will be seen that the conflict began carly and continued long: we give the material facts in the words of Strype:

"At the convocation held in 1562, certain members of the lower house (to the number of thirty-three) put in request that the psalms appointed at common prayer be sung distinctly by the whole congregation [that is, instead of antiphonal chanting], and that all curious singing as well as playing upon organs be removed.............That the use of copes and surplices be taken away," and "that all Saints' feasts and holydays, bearing the name of a creature, be clearly abrogated."

This document was signed by the Deans of St. Paul's, Oxford, Lichfield, Hereford, Excter; the Provost of Eton, twelve Archdeacons and fourteen other clergymen.

"The disciplinarians in 1572 were creating new trouble and disturbance,-labouring for a further reformation. They published two books, "The Admonition to the Parliament,' and 'A View of Popish Abuses yet

Preface to the Apology for authorized and set forms of Liturgy.'

Preface to a Collection of Hymns, by James Martineau, Minister of Paradise Street Chapel, Liverpool.

Strype, Annals of the Reformation,' vol. i. p. 335.

remaining.' The Universities were much heated with these controversies. In Cambridge were Cartwright, the Lady Margaret professor, Browning, Brown, Millain, Chark, Dering and many of St. John's, who, being men of learning, made a strong impression upon the younger students."

The design and character of these publications may be gathered from the following extracts :—

"Lordly lords, archbishops, bishops, suffragans and deans, with the rest of that proud generation, must down. Their tyrannous lordships cannot stand with Christ and his kingdom. The Book of Common Prayer is an imperfect book, culled and picked out of that Popish dunghill, the Massbook, full of all abomination. As for the singing of Benedictus, Nunc dimittis and Magnificat in the common prayer, it is no other than a clean profaning of the holy Scriptures+."

"The regiment of the Church is anti-christian, and we may as safely subscribe to allow the dominion of the Pope over us as to subscribe to it. Let, then, all Cathedral churches be pulled down, which are no other than dens of loitering lubbers; and all deans and prebendaries be clean taken away‡."

The zeal and firmness of Parker, Whitgift, Jewel and other eminent divines, backed by the well-known partiality of Queen Elizabeth for the Cathedral Service, sufficed to preserve our cathedrals and their choirs intact; but the assault was continued in the same tone and temper till the period of the civil war. An extract or two from the various pamphlets which appeared during this interval will serve to show that its violence had not abated:

"We need not such assistance as is borrowed from leathern bellies or horrid shouts, which confound the sweetness of a hymn, and which is destroyed by organs and quires. These cores in our devotion let us strive by all means to cut out, as careful confectioners from apples and pears, that so they may preserve the fruit itself §.”

"To fancy the great God pleased with a pompous and noisy ostentation in paying him public homage, were to represent him as possessed with human vanity and folly; and as for the practice of singing alternately, I must need put on new spectacles before I can read its authority or decency. Let this sort of music, then, be driven out of our Cathedrals, as a prophane hindrance of divine worship."

Meanwhile the Cathedral Service had no want of able and zealous champions, whose language, when employed in its defence, breathed a warmth and eloquence which experience

Strype, vol. i.

Strype, vol. ii. p. 187.

Strype, 38 App.

§ The Holy Harmony, or a plea for the abolishing of Organs and other Musick out of the Protestant Churches of Great Britain,' 1633.

The Rise and Antiquity of Cathedral Worship considered.'

and conviction alone could have inspired. Dean Comber, speaking of it, says,—

“Such music will mind us of the harmony of the celestial choir; it will calm our souls and gently raise our affections, putting us into a fit posture to glorify our Father which is in heaven: for sure he is of a rugged temper and hath an ill-composed soul who feels not the effect of this grave and pleasant harmony."

To the same purport, but with more beauty and force of language, are the words of Hooker :

"Harmony delighteth all ages, and bescemeth all states. It is as seasonable in grief as in joy-as decent when added unto things of greatest weight and solemnity, as in cheerful and becoming festivity. There is that draweth to gravity and sobriety; there is also that carrieth, as it were, into extacies, filling the mind with a heavenly joy, and for the time, in a manner, severing it from the body. So that even if we lay aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds, being framed in due sort, and carried from the car to the spiritual faculties of our souls, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled: apt as well to quicken as to allay the spirit, sovereign against melancholy and despair, forcible to draw forth tears of devotion, able both to move and moderate all affections. Therefore doth the Church, at this present day, retain it as an ornament to God's service and a help to our devotion.

"In church music, wanton, light or unsuitable melody, such as only pleaseth the car, and serveth not the matter that goeth with it, doth rather blemish and disgrace what we do, than add either beauty or furtherance to it. On the other hand, such faults prevented, music, when fitly suited with matter sounding to the praise of God, is in truth most admirable, and doth much edify, if not the understanding, yet surely the affection, because there it worketh much. They must have hearts very dry and tough from whom such melody and harmony doth not sometime draw that wherein a mind religiously affected doth delight *.”

Passages similar in spirit and in tendency might be cited without number from the early and able divines of the Church of England. But many persons will probably now inquire, "Is it possible that such effects can be produced by the music of our church?" To which it must be replied, certainly not in its present state. The divines of a former period described what they heard, and its effect; they listened to the performance of a numerous and well-trained Choir, of from thirty to fifty voices, employed on music constructed with a direct reference to its aggregate strength and individual ability, and

Eccles. Polity, p. 238.

they accurately recorded its power over their own minds. Hooker's is no poetical flight, but the simple record of an existing state of things. His successors of the present day would not dare to employ his language, even if they possessed the ability to utter it.

It will have appeared, from the above extracts, that the assailants of Cathedral Music are not a recent section of the Church; but that from the time of Cartwright and Whittingham down to that of Blomfield and Monk, such persons have existed,—not in lincal and uninterrupted descent, nor always employing the same means, since the former adversaries proceeded by open assault, and the latter have worked by sap and mine. It is not until the time of the Long Parliament, however, that we find the arguments for reducing Cathedral establishments assuming the form and substance of legislative enactment. In 1641 Sir Edward Dering brought in a bill for the appropriation of Cathedral revenues to other purposes; and this is the precedent-the sole precedent-for the act of 4th Victoria, Cap. cxiii. The bill of the Roundhead and that of the Bishop alike assume that it is "expedient" (convenient term) to make certain alterations in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches; and having established this principle, the Presbyterians of old and the prelates of the present day have carried it out just as suited their respective purposes. In the former case the attack came from an avowed enemy to episcopacy, which he described as the "immedicabile vulnus" of the Church of Christ. The motive, however mistaken, was an honest one; it veiled no selfish or sinister purpose,-the object avowed was the object really sought.

"The purposes of both these measures declared that they sought opposite results by the same means; and, as one only of them can be right, and a vital interest is involved in the conclusion, it is not too much to claim, in a spirit of true affection, the most thoughtful regard to consequences, among those who have been the authors of this unsatisfactory coincidence *."

That attention to petition and remonstrance which was denied to the advocates of Cathedral establishments in the present day, was granted by the Long Parliament, before whom Dr. Hacket, then Canon of St. Paul's, delivered his

Thoughts on the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill,' by a Clergyman, 1840, p. 4.

speech in their defence, resting it chiefly on the following grounds:-"That in a well-governed church it is fit that there "should be places where daily thanksgivings and supplica❝tions should be made unto God;"-that Cathedrals were the fit places of abode and reward for men of learning and piety, where, exempt from the labours of parochial duty, and "sup"plied with large and copious libraries, they might utter that "which should endure the test and convince gainsayers;" -that "the principal grammar-schools in the kingdom were "maintained by those churches, the care and discipline of "them being set forward by their oversight, fit masters pro"vided for them, and their method in teaching frequently "examined; "-that Cathedral endowments have answered their purpose in "training up the charioteers and horsemen of "Israel, champions of Christ's cause against the adversary of "their learned pens * ;"-that "the structures themselves, the first monuments of piety in this kingdom," claim the care and respect of succeeding generations; and that "it were an "ill presage that those churches which were the first harbours "of the Christian religion should suffer from those persons "who are entrusted with their reparation and have the care "and custody of them."

Little did Dr. Hacket dream, when uttering this defence, that he was in fact pronouncing the severest censure upon his successors and the capitular members of Cathedrals in following ages, who have destroyed every plea that he urged. What is now the daily worship?-maimed rites and a mere shadow. Where are the champions of Christ's cause? where the learned and laborious toilers in his vineyard?—not in our Cathedral precincts. Where the grammar-schools attached to

* With this intent, and for this purpose especially, were the Canonries and Prebendal stalls of our Cathedrals founded and endowed. Whether in times past they fulfilled their design may be ascertained from the following list of divines, all of whom held some official situation therein; and those among them who were afterwards raised to the episcopal bench obtained their promotion as the fit recompense of learning and ability already displayed when capitular members of Cathedrals. Walton, Castell, Kennicott, Patrick, Louth, Graves, Horne, Sherlock, Beveridge, Tillotson, Barrow, South, Hall, Prideaux, Shuckford, Townshend, Hooker, Cave, Heylin, Comber, Wake, Waterland, Bull, Pearson, Bramhall, Butler, Lightfoot, Hammond, Whitby, Bentley, Stillingfleet, Casaubon and Potter. This list, we are aware, is a very imperfect one, but it will suffice to show the "fruits" of these endowments, to justify Dr. Hacket's defence of them, and therefore to prove the impolicy (to say nothing of other considerations) of their recent abolition.