for Church use. Again, in 1644, Parliament issued an ordinance which commanded "that all organs and the frames and cases wherein they stand in all Churches and Chappells aforesaid shall be taken away and utterly defaced, and none other hereafter set up in their places." "At Westminster Abbey," we are told, "the Soldiers broke down the organs and pawned the pipes at several Ale Houses for pots of Ale." It is difficult to understand this opposition to the organ, more especially as David in the last of his psalms enjoined the people "to praise God with stringed instruments and organs." True, indeed, Job, in one of his most pessimistic moods, placed it on record that "the wicked rejoice at the sound of the organ," but evidently Job had no soul for music—was so unmusical, in fact, that he is worthy to be associated with a certain eminent divine of the English Church, whose musical instinct was so deficient that he only knew "God Save the Queen" was being sung by the people rising and doffing their hats. Before touching upon that scientific development of the art, which, broadly speaking, began with the advent of the Flemish School and reached its culminating point within the rounded walls of Bayreuth, we may well give a moment's consideration to those melodies, which travelled their unwritten way through the early Middle Ages, and
which we know, by the few examples that have come down to us, to have been racy of the soil that gave them birth; the folk song of the country is more characteristic of its people, of their temperament and psychology, than any other attribute of their national existence. We, in England, have little enough to point to in this way; in a sense there is nothing peculiarly individual in our music as a whole. But with the old melodies of Ireland, that ever seem to tremble between a tear and a smile, and in the quaint pathos of Scotland's airs, and the well-defined beauty of typical Welsh songs, we recognise the true speech of the heart and the outpouring of the natural man. Germany is still richer in its folk music, and the Pole and the Russian, the Hungarian and the Gaul, can each point to a mine of original melody which has provided latter-day composers with the basis of their most beautiful works. Nor must the importance of the Troubadours and Minnesingers be overlooked in reference to this interesting phase of musical art. They it was who kept alive and spread abroad the traditional songs of the people, and by their accomplishment actually worked as an educational force on the people themselves. Readers of Chaucer will bear in mind many an allusion to the minstrel's art of his period, and well through the Norman and Plantaganet epochs.
"With minstrelsy the rafters sung,
Of harps, that from reflected light
From the proud gallery glittered bright
To crown the banquet's solemn close,
Themes of British glory rose;
And to the strings of various chimes
Attemper'd the heroic rhymes."
To the Flemish, or Netherland School of music we owe an art system, that exercised a potent influence on every form of composition, and counterpoint was the especial study of its followers, until, as invariably happens, technical skill was regarded with a greater degree of favour than genuine inspiration. But the School unquestionably produced a vast number of very fine masses, motets, and much fine service music. Then from Belgium the musical spirit travelled to Italy, and before the 16th century had fulfilled half its appointed course, the powers of Palestrina had indelibly stamped Italian art, and his genius had elevated the ecclesiastical music of the age, to the lofty standard of its associations. Then such musicians came to mind as Monteverdi and Carissimi, the latter of whom made clear the path, for those great writers of oratorio, whose names we hold in such reverence, and whose works we love with such unwavering devotion. German art was late in the field, and correspondingly slow in the earlier stages of its development; thus we owe it
little as a pioneer in the art. But when the Teuton burst upon the world in all his greatness, he first came in the colossal personality of John Sebastian Bach, and then followed Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, to be succeeded by others, who were well qualified to take unto themselves the mantles of their predecessors. Perhaps, however, I have done early German art some injustice, for it must not be forgotten, that to the era of the great Reformation, we owe those Lutheran chorales, such as the famous
Ein' feste Burg
, which were as effective in stirring and encouraging the rank and file of the reformers, as were the thrilling words of Luther, and his earnest and enthusiastic fellow-workers. And it was due to the custom of accompanying these chorales, that Germany owned, before the end of the 17th century, the finest school of organists in Europe. English music has always leaned more towards the sacred, than the secular side of the art. The names of Marbecke, Thomas Tallis, Byrd, Farrant, Gibbons, Lawes, Blow and Purcell are known to every choir-boy and village chorister. Their anthems and chants are part and parcel of the musical programme of every parish church, and the fine example, set by these Elizabethan and Stuart writers has been well followed, by Croft, Weldon, Boyce, and nearer, and belonging to our own times, Wesley, Goss and Sullivan. And it is the sacred in music, which to-day makes the strongest appeal