Psalms, which were sung in response by a double chorus. As may be imagined, such a hymn and such a song were not likely to be forgotten; and it is certain that the singing of this Passover ode was continued as the Sabbath even-song until the destruction of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the Hebrews as a nation."-Pp. 3-8.

Next, as regards the expression of this Worship, we select a passage which strikes us as putting the right view in a very original and admirable form:

"There are no laws laid down" [in the common oratorical or musical treatises of the world,] "to govern two or more persons in their speaking together in the ordinary staccato voice. Indeed such an exhibition as two or more persons speaking together in their ordinary tone in either of the houses of Parliament, in any court of justice, in any drawing-room, or in any place whatsoever, would be considered the height of indecorum, and a distinct breach of the necessary courtesies of life. The reason of this is plain, for there would be no principle of unity, no law of order; each speaker would use his own rhythms, i.e. his divisions of the language; each speaker would use his own accents, i.e. his elevations or depressions of tone; there would be confusion in the rate of utterance; there would be discord in the vibrations of the sound the result would be a confused and unintelligible murmur. For there is no law known in nature or in art to govern two or more persons speaking together in the ordinary staccato voice. Now if it be required of two or more persons to give outward expression to the same language, and at the same time, it is manifest that the use of the ordinary staccato voice, for the accomplishment of this end, is out of the question. And we find in the history of the Bible, in the records of all acts of worship narrated in its pages, that the use of this ordinary staccato voice was forbidden, and some other use enjoined in its stead; and that which was demanded is the use of the sostenuto, sustained, or continuous tone, of which the ear would appreciate the vibrations (for musical tone is merely the geometry of motion in the air), and the ear having appreciated them, imitation and adoption are at once natural and easy. I say natural, I should rather say idiosyncratical, for the musical tones of man, the human being, the measured vibrations proceeding from his throat differ essentially from those of all other living creatures. Birds sing they have a wonderful gamut, a marvellous song; they give utterance to many more sounds in the octave than the human being can utter or even put on paper by any known symbols. We have no notes in music to express the delicate divisions of the octave poured forth in such facile gush by those masters of song, the lark, the canary, the nightingale; but no two birds can sing the same tune together, for they have not the power of comparing their rhythms of song with those of their fellow-songsters. Their instinct guides them to sing in rhythms, but here their knowledge of rhythm ceases; they can no more sing the same song together than two or more men can TALK the same sentence together. "But what saith the royal Psalmist ?—

"Kings of the earth and all people,

Princes and all judges of the earth,
Young men and maidens,

Old men and children,

Let them praise the name of the LORD.'

Now, to realize this command, it is clear there must be no talking, for so long as we talk only we cannot distinguish the rhythms of those that talk with us, nor have we any guide to assure us when and where will take place those variations of tone we call accent. Reference must be had, therefore, to that power of uniting voices peculiarly and solely belonging to humanity. For the right celebration of the answer in our Servitium Dei, we must appeal to that Opus Dei, that Donum Dei which our Creator has withheld from all other living creatures. This gift to man stands alone, and marks it of an extraordinary character. It is of the Divine, and from the Divine; and, if not used in reference to the Divine, the gift is a nullity, the talent is wrapped up in a napkin and buried out of sight; for it would puzzle any casuist to maintain that speaking together in a sustained musical tone, the recitative which nature points out as the only means to the end required, is of any other possible use to man. I refer not to singing together in its ordinary sense, although I presume no casuist can be found to argue that it is just and proper to sing together for our own pleasure and gratification only, and not also to the honour and worship of GOD. But I allude to that singular peculiarity, that power which has been given to humanity of uttering together the rhythms of language in the rhythms of tone, which, if it be not used in the answer of worship, appears to me a lost gift, and of no use whatsoever to its possessor. I am ready to admit it differs most essentially from singing together, in the large sense of that word; and happily for humanity that it does so differ: if it did not, the general command to join in worship would be inoperative, for it is impossible that 'young men and maidens, old men and children' should all become vocalists, or accomplished in the science of music. The two gifts are essentially different. Moses and the children of Israel, Miriam and the daughters of Israel, were not all musicians, not all vocalists; but the rhythms of tone which they used on that grand occasion were doubtless within the grasp of all voices, within the comprehension of all minds, within the execution of all classes. Again, if there be no form of national worship without answer-and the records of the Bible present none such, and there be no such thing as answer in the proper sense of the term (for the Hebrew word answer means to sing) without the adoption of a common tone or point of unity-then there is no such thing as national worship without music. And this is the fact, for the history of the dissemination of Christianity is also the history of the rise and progress of music in the abstract. The whole of Christianity (all the facts of the Incarnation, the simple facts of that unfathomable mystery, the redemption of the world), has been spread throughout Christendom by means of song. Let us for a moment forget printing and the press, and look to the earliest records of Church worship; open the oldest Service Book, written long before the Gregorian note; what do we find? Music; nothing without music, everything with music. The Psalter, music; the Prayers, music; the Gos

pels, music; the Epistles, music; and lastly, a long series of historical ballads called hymns, and each with its own peculiar music. And indeed, if it be permitted for a moment to anticipate the examination of our own Service Book, our Book of Common or Public Prayer, what do we find therein? Nearly the whole of the answering portion to consist of poetry, and all of that answering part, with its music as well, firmly and definitely settled as any act of Parliament, or any wellknown principle of the British constitution.

"It is not incumbent on us to allude to the formation of the first Book of Edward, A.D. 1549, more than to say, in the words of Archbishop Cranmer, The present order of the Church of England is the same as has been used in the Church for 1500 years past.' There was no intention of passing from old things to new things; but there was an intention of destroying the new untruth, and preserving the old truth." -Pp. 18-22.

Following upon this very just appreciation of the theory of the English Prayer Book, we find, as we should expect, an equally Catholic vindication of the right use of the Psalter, from which we will make one short quotation :

"The separation of the music from the poetry of the Book has a most deadening and disheartening effect with regard to the Church cycle-the points of contrast ever rising up in the course of the progress of the ecclesiastical year. What matters it whether the Benedicite be read in place of the Te Deum, or the Jubilate in place of the Benedictus; whether the Psalms are those for Easter or those for AshWednesday? The change in the character of the music, that which gives the strong feeling, the greater intensity, is absent; and the congregation will not be coaxed into reading more joyously or more cheerfully any one time more than another. The Sunday festival ceases to claim a distinctive hold over the Churchman. Christmas without carol, Easter without antiphon, the Holy Ascension without its song, seem so many stalking ghosts of their festivals."-Pp. 92-93.

Further, Mr. Pittman apprehends rightly the claims of the great Eucharistic Service of the Church:

"The Communion Service is the high Eucharistical Office of the Church, and the manner of celebrating the Nicene Creed stands in quite a different situation to the Apostles' Creed; and if not sung as a noble thanksgiving hymn, which it assuredly is, the first part of the Communion Office is an office without any music at all, if we except the Litany responses between the Commandments. To condense into these responses the whole oblation of music in the Eucharistical Service of the Church appears a very strange way of imitating the order of 1500 years. It was not so when the office was made; it was never intended so to be when the Book was issued: the music of the Creed was given, that music to which it had been allied for an uninterrupted series of centuries, and sung in a Church ancient and glorious for many hundreds of years before Popery existed. It is an opposition to olden

practice, a manifest departure from the Reformed order, not to sing this noble Creed; and not singing it creates a marked inequality between the mode of celebrating this high Office and that of the Morning. The Nicene Creed, as a thanksgiving hymn, is the very counterpart to the Te Deum. To sing the one and not sing the other seems a kind of disrespect for the higher Office, for which it would appear difficult to allege any reason. It stands in a joyful and exalted position, coming immediately after the Gospel, and, for the comforting of such as delight in music,' its delivery in song affords a never failing freshness and delight, and brings this part of the service to an appropriate climax. The other portions of the Eucharistical Service, in the second part, which have their own peculiar music, are the Offertory, the Sursum corda, the Sanctus, the Gloria in excelsis; and to these there are some who add the Agnus Dei, the singing of which was retained in the first Book of Edward, in accordance with the ancient custom of the Western Church. It hardly need be remarked that these hymns, the most ancient of all in the Christian Church, the very hymns of which most is recorded of the jubilant and exultant manner in which they were sung, are now no longer sung in the English Church; at least the exceptions to this strange rule are not so numerous as could be wished. That the magnificent hymn the Gloria in Excelsis should be a comparatively unknown song in this great country appears one of the anomalies for which it is impossible to give any reason."-Pp. 86, 87.

We call attention particularly, to the earnestness with which the Author pleads, in this passage, for the ancient Music of the Church, the absence of which knowledge, as he subsequently says, "must disqualify the musician from holding any rank in the profession to which he has associated himself."

And now we come to the question of the kind of music which should be used for the Psalms, where we must try a lance with our respected Author.

Judging by his antecedents, we were in no manner of doubt that he would advocate the use of the Old Church Tones. Consistency required him to do so; yea in one place he characterises it as "a grievous mistake in the first English Prayer Book not to have allied the music to the Psalter," while at the very time of writing this, as will presently appear, it was quite in his memory that no other music existed for the purpose than these same melodies. But Mr. Pittman (or rather we must believe not Mr. Pittman, but some crochety friend who has induced him, for the nonce, to adopt the paternity of his conceits), would have us believe that there are some insuperable difficulties in singing the English Psalter to the ancient Tones. These difficulties are thus stated:

"The terminations of the old forms of these chants are, with hardly an exception, acatalectic, i.e., the last measure is perfect, and always contains two sounds if not more. For in the Latin language the vocal pulse is rarely found with the closing syllable. But in our ballad poetry, and all the metrical Psalms in the book of Sternhold and Hop

kins, the terminations are pulsated, and the closing syllable bears the last stress or accent, as it is with our heroic line. But this is not the Iambic line of the Latin, for that has no stress on its last syllable, the last stress being on the antepenultimate. And although it is said to be not proper in general writing to close our sentences with a monosyllable, still in this respect we find the rule so often broken in our English Psalter, that it might reasonably be thought there was no such rule. Hence it may be naturally conceived, if these oriental tunes were to travel in concord and comfort in company with the English language, not a little ingenuity would be required to fit them together in harness. Such, then, of these oriental tunes as would bear a transformation of shape, it is easy to suppose could be adapted to the new Psalter, and would keep their place in the quires; and that such of these tunes which could not be so transformed would ultimately fall into desuetude: and this result actually transpired. That tune which is now called Tallis's Chant, and put forward in all books and by all writers in the vanguard of all chants, and as the one holding the highest place of honour, although as to its actual notes it is truly Oriental or Gregorian, yet in respect to its rhythm and the number of its measures is in no way Oriental or Gregorian. The nation, therefore, was in this situation,-here was a new Psalter composed in rhythms repugnant to the only Psalter tunes then known, or indeed then in existence. Further, the Church was in this situation,-those of the old priests that remained were familiar enough with the tunes, but then the tunes had not been adapted to the songs, and in this respect each priest was left to do as well as he could. Of course, if a man possessed no great delicacy of ear for the rhythms of his language, or became desperate from the very emergency of the case, and would therefore invent and rely upon such final accents as 'ti' in the word salvation, or 'with' in the phrase 'glad in Him with Psalms,' or 'My' in "saw My works,' many of the difficulties would vanish. But such a law of uniting the old music to the new Psalms could never last, nor did it; for not only the scholastic mind, but the national mind was on all sides opposed to it. It took generations to create the system which now governs our prose Psalmody in the Church, and it was not made a certainty until it was decided to adopt one form, the form of our heroic line of poetry as the unalterable framework of our English Chant."-Pp. 43-45.

It seems to us really impossible to believe that the author of this pretentious nonsense, as we shall presently show the extract to be mere nonsense-can be the right-minded and clear writer which Mr. Pittman everywhere else in the book shows himself to be. Our former extract will have made it plain why, on his own principles, he must be an advocate of the old ecclesiastical chant, and that this extract must emanate from some Alter NON idem with whom he has associated himself.

But now, to deal simply with the assertions as they here occur, we shall show (1.) that what the writer says about the character of the Gregorian Tones is quite untrue; (2) that there is really as much variety in the terminations of the Latin as of the English