Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 2

IN ITS EFFECTS UPON MUSIC, ETC. 403
Fourthly, that the number of singers had already been halved in many places,
and the money went into prebendaries' purses ; that half the lodgings or chambers
appointed by the founders for the singing men, had either been kept by preben-
daries, or let at a yearly rent, they pocketing the money ; and that places were
left open a year and a half, under pretence of not having found competent persons.
If, therefore, says the writer, in cathedrals, where the original number of singers
was forty, " now diminished to twenty," they be again " lessened to ten, how
absurd will it be that such large and stately buildings should be supplied by so
few, whose voices will only sound but as a little clapper in a great bell ! "
It ends with a recommendation that the statutes of every foundation may be
examined; for, although deans lived like deans, and prebendaries and canons
lived like prebendaries and canons, " the poor singing men do live like miserable
beggars ; " and " if the said lands be not employed to the true use and intention
of the founder, as the members are sworn to preserve them, the aforesaid oath is
violated and broken, and the abuse needeth reformation." a
As these abuses were not reformed, it may be inferred that the deans and
chapters were too powerful for the singing men, as they were in the late eccle-
siastical commission, which has perpetuated the misappropriation of the trusts
intended for their benefit by the founders. Well might the poet exclaim that —
" fat Cathedral bodies
Have very often but lean little souls." b
As to the Puritans, many of the clergy who were raised to preferments in
Queen Elizabeth's reign, spent the time of their exile in such churches as
followed the Genevan form of worship, and returned much disaffected to the rites
and ceremonies that were re-established, and especially to cathedral service. The
dislike to cathedral service was not exclusively acquired in exile, for Thomas
Becon, who was afterwards made Prebendary of Canterbury by Queen Elizabeth,
had printed his Authorized Beliques of Borne in the last year of the reign of
Edward VI. In that work he says, " As for the Divine Service and Common
Prayer, it is so chaunted and minced and mangled of our costly, hired, curious,
and nice musitions (not to instruct the audience withall, nor to stirre up men's
minds unto devotion, but with a lascivious harmony to tickle their ears), that it
may justly seeme, not to be a noyse made of men, but rather a bleating of brute
beasts ; whiles the choristers neigh a descant as it were a sort of colts ; others
bellow a tenour as it were a company of oxen ; others bark a counterpoint as it
were a kennell of dogs; others roar out a treble like a sort of bulls; others
grunt out base as it were a number of hogs." c
In 1572, Thomas Cartwright, a violent Puritan, and Margaret Professor of
» The manuscript from which these extracts are made gislrum Eleemosynaries D. Pauli Londinensis, 4to., 1827;
is in the British Museum (MSS. Reg. 18, B. 19), hound and A Correspondence and Evidence respecting the ancient
up with James the First's versification of the Psalms in ' Collegiate School attached to St. Paul's Cathedral, 4to.,
his own handwriting. 1832. Also the various puhlications of Pring, theorganist
"See on this subject, An Apology for Cathedral Service, of Bangor. The case of the Minor Canons of Canter-
8vo., 18.19. The Choral Service of the United Church of bury, &c, &c. The same tale of violated trusts is told
England and Ireland, by the Rev. John Jebb, 8vo., 1843. in all.
Miss Hackett's three privately-printed books, viz., Brief c This passage is quoted by Prynne, in his Histrio-
Account of Cathedral and Collegiate Schools, with an ab- mastix, the Player's Scourge, 4to., 1633, as well as an
stract of their Statutes and Endowments, 4to , 1S27 ; Re- extract already printed here(N T ote C, p. 18), from John of
2d