YORK MINSTER.
One of our largest cathedral organs stands on the magnificent Choir Screen. It is a huge, square mass of painted pipes and Gothic carving. The most picturesque part of the instrument is the tuba, the pipes of which are arranged horizontally, pointing down the nave. This stop is the best of its kind I know.
This is but a meagre account of English organs, as it only includes those which I have had the means of studying: I ought to have written about the Temple organ, that in Westminster Abbey, the huge instrument in the Albert Hall, and the one in the Crystal Palace. That in the Temple has been described, much better than I can do it, by Edmund Macrory, in his “Few Notes on the Temple Organ.” I hope that some day the Abbey authorities will see how poor, not in tone, but in appearance, their present organ is. They have ample space to erect a magnificent case. The Albert Hall organ is an attempt at a new style of case, which I think is a failure; and the Handel organ has a very ordinary (except for its size) façade, with four towers, and the usual painted pipes.