Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/468

 500 NOTES AND QUERIES. [u* b. iv. dk. w. •» it pleased him to do so. If Mr. Davey is anxious that such a man, one who wilfully allowed the destruction of even one cathedral organ, should be elevated into a patron of organs, he is welcome. Cromwell, like all party leaders, bears the chief responsibility for the actions of his party. No amount of special pleading has ever been able to remove it. In the 'Life of Oliver Cromwell,' by F. W. Cornish, M.A., assistant master at Eton College, 1884, some of his actions are thus entered in the index :—" Cromwell, Oliver at Cambridge, defaces the churches there —Defaces cathedrals—Stops the services at Ely." The book is temperately written and on the whole favourable to its subject, and is certainly not calculated for "excursionists at cathedrals." (16...) Rochester Catheili-al and Westminster Abbey, ' N. A; Q.,' 9,h S. iv. 190. (16...) Cambridge, King's College Chapel.—Prof. Sir G. Humphry's ' Guide to Cambridge,' ed. 6, p. 141. (16...) Exeter Cathedral.-Walcott, 'Traditions and Customs of Cathedrals,' 1872, p. 40. 1641. Worcester Cathedral, stopped by an acci- dent.—Smith and Onslow, ' Diocesan History of Worcester,' 1883, p. 242. 1642. Canterbury Cathedral.—' Hierurgia Angli- cana,' 1848, p. 114; Walcott, 43, 44; 'N. & 5.,' 4th S. xi. 207. 1642. Winchester Cathedral.—Walcott, 38. 1642. Chichester Cathedral.—Walcott, 41. 1643. Peterborough Cathedral.—Here Cromwell said such things were " vanities and trumpery," and that if the Parliament's orders were not obeyed he would "casliier the whole troop." — Cornish, 57; ' Hierurgia,'275 ; A**oc. Archit. Soc. Paper*, vii. 85; Perry, 'History of Church of England," 1862, ii. 140; Walcott, 34. 1643. Ely Cathedral.—Here Cromwell said that the " choir service was unedifying and offensive."— Cornish, 58. 1643. Lichfield Cathedral.—Walcott, 34. 1644. Order by Parliament to abolish and deface organs. — Whitelocke, ' Memorials,' 1682, p. 83 ; ' Hierurgia,' 165. 1644 (or later). " Rump " songs, rejoicing over the destruction of organs. — Hierurgia,' 165, 248. 1644. One of the charges against Archbishop Laud was his consecrating organs.—Whitelocke, 84. 164a Chester Cathedral. — Walcott, 37. 1646. Worcester Cathedral. — Walcott, 31, 32; Smith and Onslow, 242. 1647. Norwich Cathedral.—Wordsworth, ' Eccle- siastical Biography,' 1818, v. 331 ; ' Hierurgia.' 163, 169; Perry, ii. 141; Walcott, 45; ' N. & Q.,' 3"> S. xii. 490. 1648. Little Gidding.—Wordsworth, v. 190. 1652. Committee appointed to arrange for pulling down cathedrals (which involved the destruction of organs and fittings).—Whitelocke, 514. 1657. The pulling down of Gloucester Cathedral was begun.—'Guide to Gloucester Cathedral,' bv Rev. H. Haines, M.A., 1867, pref.; Walcott, 45. 1660. Pepys, hearing the organ in Westminster Abbey, notes that it was the first time he had heard an organ in a cathedral.—Walcott, 111. That organs in the larger parish churches shared the same fate may be judged from the many records of the purchase of organs after 1660. See Southey's 'Book of the Church,' 1837, p. 473. The foregoing list is worth pre- serving for many reasons. It is an ugly one. 1 do not wonder at anybody being ashamed of it. W. C. B. Before answering Mr. Cumminos's com- munication (ante, p. 189), I remind readers of 'N. & Q.'that I use the word " Crom well " to denote one particular man, and not any- body besides that man. Mr. Cummings misquoted me in his first paragraph, as I have already shown (p. 276). Leaving that matter, I will discuss his denial of my assertion that the organ accompaniments used before the Civil War were of an absurdly florid character and justly objected to by the Puritans. I can point to the florid organ music preserved in the Mulliner MS. and the so-called " virginal books"; but still better evidence was adduced at an address on 'Cromwell and Music' given by myself at Hampstead during the Cromwell tercen- tenary celebrations. The organist of the Chapel Royal was among the audience, and stated afterwards that he possessed an old printed organ score of*the well-known Service in f by Orlando Gibbons (organist to James I. and Charles I.), "as played by Mr. Gibbons himself," full of meaningless embel- lishments. The German organists of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries followed the same plan; this was called coloriren, and Coloratur is still used in Ger- many to describe florid singing. Ambros calls the Coloristen tasteless barbarians. The florid treatment was also carried into vocal music, sacred and secular ; specimens of the embellishments used in Italy were printed in 1594 and 1615. A German visitor to Queen Elizabeth in 1592 was specially delighted at the way a choirboy coloring everything during the service. Mr. W. B. Rye (' England seen by Foreigners,' p. 16) has quoted the passage, but mistranslated it, evidently being ignorant of the technical meaning then and now attached to coloriren. These embellish- ments were doubtless often extemporized, and tastefully used by some performers. I did not derive my notion of this style from D. Purcells 'Psalms Set Full,' as Mr. Ci'mmings suggests. I did, indeed, amuse my Hampstead audience with some of these, but I distinctly explained they were of a later date than the Civil War, and were produced after congregational psalm-sing- ing had become usual in churches. In