The Parish Clerk. P. H. Ditchfield
of the Psalms of David. There they were, but the right one was hard to find. Some had two syllables too much to suit the tune, and some had two syllables too little. But it did not matter very greatly, and we were accustomed to add a word here, or leave out one there; it was all in a day's work, and we went home with the comfortable reflection that we had done our best.
But a pitch-pipe was not usually the sole instrument. Many village churches had their band, composed of fiddles, flutes, clarionets, and sometimes bassoons and a drum. "Let's go and hear the baboons," said a clerk mentioned by the Rev. John Eagles in his Essays. In order to preserve strict historical accuracy, I may add that this invitation was recorded in the year 1837, and therefore could have no reference to evolutionary theories and the Descent of Man. This clerk, who invariably read "Cheberims and Sepherims," and was always "a lion to my mother's children," looking not unlike one with his shaggy hair and beard, was not inviting a neighbour to a Sunday afternoon at the Zoo, but only to hear the bassoons.
When the clerk gave out the hymn or Psalm, or on rare occasions the anthem, there was a strange sound of tuning up the instruments, and then the instruments wailed forth discordant melody. The clerk conducted the choir, composed of village lads and maidens, with a few stalwart basses and tenors. It was often a curious performance. Everybody sang as loud as he could bawl; cheeks and elbows were at their utmost efforts, the bassoon vying with the clarionet, the goose-stop of the clarionet with the bassoon--it was Babel with the addition of the beasts. And they were all so proud of their performance. It was the only part of the service during which no one could sleep, said one of them with pride--and he was right. No one could sleep through the terrible din. They were the most important officials in the church, for did not the Psalms make it clear, "The singers go before, and the minstrels" (which they understood to mean ministers) "follow after"? And then--those anthems! They were terrible inflictions. Every bumpkin had his favourite solo, and oh! the murder, the profanation! "Some put their trust in charrots and some in 'orses," but they didn't "quite pat off the stephany," as one of the singers remarked, meaning symphony. It was all very strange and curious.
Then followed the era of barrel-organs, the clerk's duty being to turn the handle and start the singing. He was the only person who understood its mechanism and how to change the barrels. Sometimes accidents happened, as at Aston Church, Yorkshire, some time in the thirties. One Sunday morning during the singing of a hymn the music came to a sudden stop. There was a solemn pause, and then the clerk was seen to make his way to the front of the singing gallery, and was heard addressing the vicar in a loud tone, saying, "Please, sor, an-ell 'as coom off." The handle had come off the instrument. At another church, in Huntingdonshire, the organ was hidden from view by drawn curtains, behind which the clerk used to retire when he had given out the Psalm. On one occasion, however, no sound of music issued from behind the curtains; at last, after a solemn pause, the clerk's quizzical face appeared, and his harsh voice shouted out, "Dang it, she 'on't speak!" The "grinstun organ," as David Diggs, the hero of Hewett's Parish Clerk calls it, was not always to be depended on. Every one knows the Lancashire dialect story of the "Barrel Organ" which refused to stop, and had to be carried out of church and sat upon, and yet still continued to pour forth its dirge-like melody.
David Diggs may not have been a strictly historical character, but the sketch of him was doubtless founded upon fact, and the account of the introduction of the barrel-organ into the church of "Seatown" on the coast of Sussex is evidently drawn from life. A vestry meeting was held to consider about having a quire in church, and buying a barrel-organ with half a dozen simple Psalm tunes upon it, which Davy was to turn while the parson put his gown on, and the children taught to sing to. The clerk was ordered to write to the squire and ask him for a liberal subscription. This was his letter:
"Mr. Squir, sur,
"Me & Farmer Field & the rest of the genelmen In vestri sembled Thinks the parson want parish Relif in shape of A Grindstun orgin betwin Survisses--i am to grind him & the sundy skool kildren is to sing to him wile he Gos out of is sete.
"We liv It to yuresef wart to giv as we dont wont to limit yur malevolens
"Your obedunt servunt
"DAVY DIGGS."
Of course this worthy scribe taught the children in the school, though writing was happily considered a superfluous accomplishment. He taught little beyond the Church Catechism and the Psalms, which he knew from frequent repetition, though he often wanted to imbue the infant minds entrusted to his charge with the Christening, Marriage, and Burial Services, and the Churching of Women, because he "know'd um by heart himself."
The barrel-organ was scarcely a great improvement upon the "cornet, flute, sackbut, psaltery"--I mean the violins, 'cellos, clarionets, and bassoons which it supplanted. The music of the village musicians in the west gallery was certainly not of the highest order. The instruments were often out of tune, and the fiddle-player and the flutist were often at logger-heads; but it was a sad pity when their labours were brought to an end, and the mechanical organ took their place. The very fact that all these players took a keen interest in the conduct of Divine service was in itself an advantage.
The barrel-organ killed the old musical life of the village. England was once the most musical nation in Europe. Puritanism tried to kill music. Organs were broken everywhere in the cathedrals and colleges, choirs dispersed and musical publications ceased. The professional players on violins, lutes, and flutes who had performed in the theatres or at Court wandered away into the villages, taught the rustics how to play on their beloved instruments in the taverns and ale-houses, and bequeathed their fiddles and clarionets to their rustic friends. Thus the rural orchestra had its birth, and right heartily did they perform not only in church, but at village feasts and harvest homes, wakes and weddings. The parish clerk was usually their leader, and was a welcome visitor in farm or cottage or at the manor when he conducted his companions to sing the Christmas carols.
The barrel-organ sealed the fate of the village orchestra. The old fiddles were wanted no more, and were hung up in the cottages as relics of the "good old times." For a time the clerk preserved his dignity and continued to take his part in the music, turning the handle of the organ.
Then the harmonium came, played by the school-mistress or some other village performer. No wonder the clerk was indignant. His musical autocracy had been overthrown. At one church--Swanscombe, Kent--when, in 1854, the change had taken place, and a kind lady, Miss F----, had consented to play the new harmonium, the clerk, village cobbler and leader of parish orchestra, gave out the hymn in his accustomed fashion, and then, with consummate scorn, bellowed out, "Now, then, Miss F----, strike up!"
It would have been a far wiser policy to have reformed the old village orchestra, to have taught the rustic musicians to play better, than to have silenced them for ever and substituted the "grinstun" instrument.
Archbishop Tait once said that there is no one who
does not look back with a kind of shame to the sort of sermons which were preached, the sort of clergymen
who preached them, the sort of building in which they preached them, and the sort of psalmody with which the service was ushered in. The late Mr. Beresford Hope thus describes the kind of service that went on in the time of George IV in a market town of Surrey not far from London. It was a handsome Gothic church, the chancel being cut off from the nave by a solid partition covered with verses and strange paintings, among which Moses and Aaron show in peculiar uncouthness. The aisles were filled with family pews or private boxes, raised aloft, and approached by private doors and staircases. These were owned by the magnates of the place, who were wont to bow their recognitions across the nave. There was a decrepit west gallery for the band, and the ground floor was crammed with cranky pews of every shape. A Carolean pulpit stood against a pillar, with reading-desk and clerk's box underneath. The ante-Communion Service was read from the desk, separated from the liturgy and sermon by such renderings of Tate and Brady as the unruly gang of volunteers with fiddles and wind instruments in the gallery pleased to contribute. The clerk, a wizened old fellow in a brown wig, repeated