Clarionet

ClarionetThe clarionet is associated with the fortunes of Mr. Frederick Dorrit, who played the instrument at the theatre where his elder niece was a dancer, and where Little Dorrit sought an engagement. After the rehearsal was over she and her sister went to take him home.He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book.... The carpenters had a joke that he was dead without being aware of it.At the theatre he had no part in what was going on except the part written for the clarionet. In his young days his house had been the resort of singers and players. When the fortunes of the family changed his clarionet was taken away from him, on the ground that it was a ‘low instrument.’ It was subsequently restored to him, but he never played it again.Of quite a different stamp was one of the characters inGoing into Society, who played the clarionet in a band at a Wild Beast Show, and played it all wrong. He was somewhat eccentric in dress, as he had on ‘a white Roman shirt and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard skin.’ We are told nothing about him, except that he refused to know his old friends. In his story of theSeven Poor TravellersDickens found the clarionet-player of the Rochester Waits so communicative that he accompanied the party across an open green called the Vines,and assisted—in the French sense—at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies.BassoonA notable bassoon player was Mr. Bagnet, who had a voice somewhat resembling his instrument. The ex-artilleryman kept a little music shop in a street near the Elephant and Castle. There werea few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music.It was to this shop that Bucket the detective came under the pretence of wanting a second-hand‘wiolinceller’ (see p.29). In the course of conversation it turns out that Master Bagnet (otherwise ‘Woolwich’) ‘plays the fife beautiful,’ and he performs some popular airs for the benefit of his audience. Mr. Bucket also claims to have played the fife himself when a boy, ‘not in a scientific way, but by ear.’BagpipesTwo references to the bagpipes deserve notice. One is inDavid Copperfield, where the novelist refers to his own early experiences as a shorthand reporter. He has no high opinion of the speeches he used to take down.One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the old drone in the newspapers.InO.M.F.(II.) we read of Charley Hexam's fellow pupils keeping themselves awakeby maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe.The peculiar subdued noise caused by a lot of children in a school is certainly suggestive of the instrument.TromboneLittle is said about the trombone. We are told, in reference to the party at Dr. Strong's (D.C.), that the good Doctor knew as much about playing cards as he did about ‘playing the trombone.’ In ‘Our School’ (R.P.) we are told a good deal about the usher who ‘made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things.’He was rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an evening.In a similarly dismembered state was the flute which Dickens once saw in a broker's shop. It was ‘complete with the exception of the middle joint.’This naturally calls to mind the story of the choir librarian who was putting away the vocal parts of a certain funeral anthem. After searching in vain for two missing numbers he was obliged to label the parcel‘His body is buried in peace.’ Two parts missing.OrganThe references to the organ are both numerous and interesting, and it is pretty evident that thisinstrument had a great attraction for Dickens. The gentle Tom Pinch (M.C.), whom Gissing calls ‘a gentleman who derives his patent of gentility direct from God Almighty,’ first claims our attention. He used to play the organ at the village church ‘for nothing.’ It was a simple instrument, ‘the sweetest little organ you ever heard,’ provided with wind by the action of the musician's feet, and thus Tom was independent of a blower, though he was so beloved thatthere was not a man or boy in all the village and away to the turnpike (tollman included) but would have blown away for him till he was black in the face.What a delight it must have been to him to avail himself of the opportunity to play the organ in the cathedral when he went to meet Martin!As the grand tones resounded through the church they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart.And he would have gone on playing till midnight ‘but for a very earthy verger,’ who insisted on locking up the cathedral and turning him out.On one occasion, while he was practising at the church, the miserable Pecksniff entered the building and, hiding behind a pew, heard the conversationbetween Tom and Mary that led to the former being dismissed from the architect's office, so he had to leave his beloved organ, and mightily did the poor fellow miss it when he went to London! Being an early riser, he had been accustomed to practise every morning, and now he was reduced to taking long walks about London, a poor substitute indeed!Nor was the organ the only instrument that he could play, for we read how he would spend half his nights poring over the ‘jingling anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back parlour,’ and amongst the household treasures that he took to London were his music and an old fiddle.The picture which forms ourfrontispieceshows Tom Pinch playing his favourite instrument. At the sale of the original drawings executed by ‘Phiz’ forMartin Chuzzlewitthis frontispiece, which is an epitome of the salient characters and scenes in the novel, was sold for £35.We read inChristmas StoriesthatSilas JorganPlayed the organ,but we are not told the name of the artist who at the concert at the Eagle (S.B.C.4) accompanied a comic song on the organ—and such an organ!Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost ‘four hundred pound,’ which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was ‘not dear neither.’The singer was probably either Howell or Glindon. Dickens appears to have visited the Eagle Tavern in 1835 or 1836. It was then a notable place of entertainment consisting of gardens with an orchestra, and the ‘Grecian Saloon,’ which was furnished with an organ and a ‘self-acting piano.’ Here concerts were given every evening, which in Lent took a sacred turn, and consisted of selections from Handel and Mozart. In 1837 the organ was removed, and a new one erected by Parsons.The Eagle gained a wide reputation through its being introduced into a once popular song.Up and down the City Road,In and out the Eagle,That's the way the money goes,Pop goes the weasel.This verse was subsequently modified (for nursery purposes) thus:Half a pound of tuppenny rice,Half a pound of treacle,That's the way the money goes,9Pop goes the weasel.Many explanations have been given of ‘weasel.’ Some say it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or ‘popped’) to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. A third (and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply a catch phrase, without any meaning.There is a notable reference to the organ inLittle Dorrit. Arthur Clennam goes to call on old Frederick Dorrit, the clarionet player, and is directed to the house where he lived. ‘There were so many lodgers in this house that the door-post seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral organ is of stops,’ and Clennam hesitates for a time, ‘doubtful which might be the clarionet stop.’Further on in the same novel we are told that it was the organ that Mrs. Finching was desirous of learning.I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr. F's death that I would learn the organ of which I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a note.The following fine description of the tones of an organ occurs inThe Chimes:The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swelling by degrees the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choirand nave. Expanding more and more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak, the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, and it soared into the sky.The effect of this on Trotty Veck was very different from that which another organ had on the benevolent old lady we read of inOur Parish. She subscribed £20 towards a new instrument for the parish church, and was so overcome when she first heard it that she had to be carried out by the pew-opener.There are various references to the organs in the City churches, and probably the description of one of them given inDombey and Sonwould suit most instruments of the period.The organ rumbled and rolled as if it had got the colic, for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out.Barrel-OrganIn real life the barrel-organ was a frequent source of annoyance to Dickens, who found its ceaseless strains very trying when he was busy writing, and who had as much trouble in evicting the grinders as David Copperfield's aunt had with the donkeys.However, he takes a very mild revenge on this deservedly maligned instrument in his works, and the references are, as usual, of a humorous character.A barrel-organ formed a part of the procession to celebrate the election of Mr. Tulrumble10as Mayor of Mudfog, but the player put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played another.This instrument had an extraordinary effect on Major Tpschoffki, familiarly and more easily known as ‘Chops,’ the dwarf, ‘spirited but not proud,’ who was desirous of ‘Going into Society’ (G.S.), and who had got it into his head that he was entitled to property:His ideas respectin' his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ, and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time he would screech out, ‘Toby, I feel my property coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a-jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England.’ Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind.Dickens found the streets in New York very different from those in London, and specially remarks how quiet they were—no itinerant musiciansor showmen of any kind. He could only remember hearing one barrel-organ with a dancing-monkey. ‘Beyond that, nothing lively, no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirling cage.’We must not forget that he has two references to pipe organs in hisAmerican Notes. When he visited the Blind School at Boston he heard a voluntary played on the organ by one of the pupils, while at St. Louis he was informed that the Jesuit College was to be supplied with an organ sent from Belgium.The barrel-organ brings to mind Jerry and his troupe of dancing-dogs (O.C.S.), especially the unfortunate animal who had lost a halfpenny during the day, and consequently had to go without his supper. In fact, his master made the punishment fit the crime; for, having set the stop, he made the dog play the organ while the rest had their evening meal.When the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl; but he immediately checked it on his master looking round and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.InDombey and Sonthere is a very apt comparison of Mr. Feeder, B.A., to this instrument. He wasDoctor Blimber's assistant master, and was entrusted with the education of little Paul.Mr. Feeder, B.A. ... was a kind of human barrel-organ with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable, but it had not been.So he had only one barrel, his sole occupation being to ‘bewilder the young ideas of Dr. Blimber's young gentlemen.’ Sometimes he had his Virgil stop on, and at other times his Herodotus stop. In trying to keep up the comparison, however, Dickens makes a curious mistake. In the above quotation Feeder is assigned one barrel only, while in Chapter XLI we are told that he had ‘his other barrels on a shelf behind him.’We find another comparison inLittle Dorrit, when the long-suffering Pancks turns round on Casby, his employer, and exposes his hypocrisy. Pancks, who has had much difficulty in getting his master's rents from the tenants, makes up his mind to leave him; and before doing so he tells the whole truth about Casby to the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard. ‘Here's the Stop,’ said Pancks, ‘that sets the tune to be ground. And there is but one tune, and its name is “Grind! Grind! Grind!”’GuitarAlthough the guitar was a fashionable instrument sixty years ago, there are but few references to it. This was the instrument that enabled the three Miss Briggses, each of them performers, to eclipse the glory of the Miss Tauntons, who could only manage a harp. On the eventful day of ‘The Steam Excursion’ (S.B.) the three sisters brought their instruments, carefully packed up in dark green cases,which were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat, accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take at least a week's incessant playing to get through.At a subsequent stage of the proceedings they were asked to play, and after replacing a broken string, and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, they gave ‘a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars,’ and secured an encore, thus completely overwhelming their rivals. In the account of theFrench Watering-Place(R.P.) we read about a guitar on the pier, ‘to which a boy or woman sings without any voice little songs without any tune.’On one of his night excursions in the guise of an ‘Uncommercial Traveller’ Dickens discovered a stranded Spaniard, named Antonio. In response to a general invitation ‘the swarthy youth’ takesup his cracked guitar and gives them the ‘feeblest ghost of a tune,’ while the inmates of the miserable den kept time with their heads.Dora used to delight David Copperfield by singing enchanting ballads in the French language and accompanying herself ‘on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar,’ though subsequent references show it was that instrument and none other.We read inLittle Dorritthat Young John Chivery wore ‘pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.’ This appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual number being about nine.9Or, ‘Mix it up and make it nice.’10The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, 1837.CHAPTER IVVARIOUS INSTRUMENTS (continued)Manymusical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. Blathers, the Bow Street officer (O.T.), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of castanets. Miss Miggs (B.R.) clanks her pattens as if they were a pair of cymbals. Mr. Bounderby (H.T.), during his conversation with Harthouse,with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine;and in the same work the electric wires rule ‘a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.’Perhaps the most extraordinary comparison is that instituted by Mrs. Lirriper in reference to her late husband.My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel.What a vivid imagination the good woman had!Her descriptive powers remind us of those possessed by Mrs. Gamp in speaking of the father of the mysterious Mrs. Harris.As pleasant a singer, Mr. Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes.There are many humorous references to remarkable performances on various instruments more or less musical in their nature. During the election at Eatanswill the crier performed two concertos on his bell, and shortly afterwards followed them up with a fantasia on the same instrument. Dickens suffered much from church bells, and gives vent to his feelings about them inLittle Dorrit, where he says thatMaddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous.In hisPictures from Italyhe wrote thus:At Genoa the bells of the church ring incessantly, not in peals, or any known form of sound, but in horrible, irregular, jerking dingle, dingle, dingle; with a sudden stop at every fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening.... The noise is supposed to be particularly obnoxious to evil spirits.But it was these same bells, which he found so maddening, that inspired him with the titleof a well-known story. He had chosen a subject, but was at a loss for a name. As he sat working one morning there suddenly rose up from Genoathe clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead....Only two days later came a letter in which not a syllable was written but ‘We have heardThe Chimesat midnight, Master Shallow,’ and I knew he had discovered what he wanted.11Yet, in spite of all this, Dickens shows—through his characters—a deep interest in bells and bell-lore. Little Paul Dombey finds a man mending the clocks at Dr. Blimber's Academy, and asks a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks; as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding-bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living; and then the precocious small boy proceeds to give the astonished clockmaker some useful information about King Alfred's candles and curfew-bells.As Smike and Nicholas tramp their long journeyto Portsmouth they hear the sheep-bells tinkling on the downs. To Tom Pinch journeying Londonwards ‘the brass work on the harness was a complete orchestra of little bells.’What a terror the bells are to Jonas Chuzzlewit just before he starts on his evil journey! He hearsthe ringers practising in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of their bells was almost maddening. Curse the clamouring bells! they seemed to know that he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a crowd of voices to all the town! Would they never be still? They ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and terrible that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise.The boom of the bell is associated with many of the villains of the novels. Fagin hears it when under sentence of death. Blackpool and Carker hear the accusing bells when in the midst of planning their evil deeds.We can read the characters of some by the way they ring a bell. The important little Mr. Bailey, when he goes to see his friend Poll Sweedlepipe (M.C.) ‘came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much sound out of the bell as possible,’ while Bob Sawyer gives a pull as if he would bring it up by the roots. Mr. Clennam pulls the rope with a hasty jerk, and Mr. Watkins Tottle with a faltering jerk, while TomPinch gives a gentle pull. And how angry Mr. Mantalini is with Newman Noggs because he keeps him‘ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to throw a strong man into convulsions, upon my life and soul,—oh demmit.’The introduction of electric bells has been a great trial to those who used to vent their wrath on the wire-pulled article or the earlier bell-rope, which used not infrequently to add unnecessary fuel by coming incontinently down on the head of the aggrieved one. What a pull the fierce gentleman must have given whose acquaintance Mr. Pickwick made when he was going to Bath! He had been kept waiting for his buttered toast, so he (Captain Dowler)rang the bell with great violence, and told the waiter he'd better bring the toast in five seconds, or he'd know the reason why.Dickens rang far more changes on the bells than there is space to enumerate; but I have shown to what extent he makes their sound a commentary on innumerable phases of life. A slight technical knowledge of bell phraseology is found inBarnaby Rudge(7), where he mentions the variations known as a ‘triple bob major.’ Finally there is an interesting reference inMaster Humphrey's Clockto ause of the bell which has now passed into history. Belinda says in a postscript to a letter to Master Humphrey, ‘The bellman, rendered impatient by delay, is ringing dreadfully in the passage’; while in a second PS. she says, ‘I open this to say the bellman is gone, and that you must not expect it till the next post.’In the old days it was the custom for the letter-carriers to collect letters by ringing a bell.There is no doubt that a most extraordinary, certainly a most original, musical effect is that secured by Mr. George (B.H.), who had just finished smoking.‘Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?’ he adds, after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe.‘Tune,’ replies the old man. ‘No, we never have tunes here.’‘That's the “Dead March” inSaul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject.’Surely a highly original way of bringing a conversation to a close!This march is referred to inOur Mutual Friend, where Mr. Wilfer suggests that going through life with Mrs. Wilfer is like keeping time to the ‘Dead March’ inSaul, from which singular simile we may gather that this lady was not the liveliest of companions.Several other instruments are casually mentioned. Mr. Hardy (S.B.T.7) was a master of many accomplishments.He could sing comic songs, imitate hackney coachmen and fowls, play airs on his chin, and execute concertos on the Jew's harp.The champion ‘chin’ performer of the early Victorian period was Michael Boai, ‘The celebrated chin melodist,’ who was announced to perform ‘some of his admired pieces’ at many of the places of entertainment. There is another reference to this extraordinary way of producing music inSketches by Boz, where Mrs. Tippin performed an air with variations on the guitar, ‘accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin.’ To return to Mr. Hardy, this gentleman was evidently deeply interested in all sorts and degrees of music, but he got out of his depth in a conversation with the much-travelled Captain Helves. After the three Miss Briggses had finished their guitar performances, Mr. Hardy approached the Captain with the question, ‘Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?’‘Didyouever hear a tom-tom, sir?’ sternly inquired the Captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended.‘A what?’ asked Hardy, rather taken aback.‘A tom-tom.’‘Never.’‘Nor a gum-gum?’‘Never.’‘Whatisa gum-gum?’ eagerly inquired several young ladies.The question is unanswered to this day, though Hardy afterwards suggests it is another name for a humbug.When Dickens visited the school where the half-time system was in force, he found the boys undergoing military and naval drill. A small boy played the fife while the others went through their exercises. After that a boys' band appeared, the youngsters being dressed in a neat uniform. Then came a choral class, who sang ‘the praises of a summer's day to a harmonium.’ In the arithmetical exercises the small piper excels (U.T.29).Wise as the serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to that instrument.This was written when the serpent was practically extinct, but Dickens would be very familiar with the name of the instrument, and may have seen and heard it in churches in his younger days.In referring to another boy's attempt at solvingthe arithmetical puzzles, he mentions the cymbals, combined with a faint memory of St. Paul.I observe the player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then rather than not cut in at all; but I take that to be in the way of his instrument.InGreat ExpectationsMr. Wopsle, who is a parish clerk by profession, had an ambition not only to tread the boards, but to start off as Hamlet. His appearance was not a success, and the audience was derisive.On his taking the recorders—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door—he was called upon unanimously for ‘Rule Britannia.’Reference has already been made to Bucket's music-shop, so we must not forget to visit Caleb Plummer's little room, where there werescores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture.The old man made a rude kind of harp specially for his poor blind daughter, and on which Dot used to play when she visited the toy-maker's. Caleb's musical contribution would be ‘a Bacchanalian song, something about a sparkling bowl,’ which much annoyed his grumpy employer.‘What! you're singing, are you?’ said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. ‘Go it,Ican't sing.’Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.The wonderful duet between the cricket and the kettle at the commencement ofThe Cricket on the Hearthcertainly deserves mention, though it is rather difficult to know whether to class the performers as instrumentalists or singers. The kettle began it with a series of short vocal snorts, which at first it checked in the bud, but finally it burst into a stream of song, ‘while the lid performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.’ Then the cricket came in with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and at it they went in fierce rivalry until ‘the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire.’Dickens was certainly partial to the cricket, for elsewhere (M.H.C.) we read of the clock thatmakes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth.There are two or three references to the key bugle, which also used to be known as the Kent bugle. It was a popular instrument half a century ago, asthe addition of keys gave it a much greater range of notes than the ordinary bugle possessed. A notable though inefficient performer was the driver who took Martin Chuzzlewit up to London.He was musical, besides, and had a little key bugle in his pocket on which, whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second.This instrument was on Mr. Feeder'sagenda.Two more instruments demand our attention. At the marriage of Tackleton and May Fielding (C.H.) there were to be marrow-bones and cleavers, while to celebrate the union of Trotty Veck's daughter Meg and Richard they had a band including the aforesaid instruments and also the drum and the bells. It was formerly the custom for butchers' assistants to provide themselves with marrow-bones and cleavers for musical effects.Each cleaver was ground so that when it was struck with the bone it emitted a certain note.12A complete band would consist of eight men, with their cleavers so tuned as to give an octave of notes. After more or less practice they would offer their services as bandsmen on the occasionof marriage ceremonies, which they had a wonderful faculty for locating, and they would provide music (of a kind)ad libitumuntil the requisite fee was forthcoming. If their services were declined the butchers would turn up all the same, and make things very unpleasant for the marriage party. The custom dates from the eighteenth century, and though it has gradually fallen into disuse a marrow-bone and cleaver band is still available in London for those who want it. A band took part in a wedding ceremony at Clapham as recently as the autumn of 1911.The following extract, referring to the second marriage of Mr. Dombey, shows what bridal parties had to put up with in the good old days:The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too.The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge13; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off ; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe.Other instruments casually referred to are the Pan's pipes, which in one place is also called a mouth-organ (S.B.S.20), the flageolet, and thetriangle. It is difficult to classify the walking-stick on which Mr. Jennings Rudolph played tunes before he went behind the parlour door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors, edgetools, and animals (S.B.C.8).11Forster,Life of Charles Dickens.12This is rather a modern development.13Near King's Cross Station (G.N.R.).CHAPTER VCHURCH MUSICDickenshas not much to say about church music as such, but the references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light upon it during the earlier years of his life. InOur Parish(S.B.) we read about the old naval officer whofinds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, and offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together.This reminds us that during the first half of last century, and indeed later in many places, the church choir as we know it did not exist, and the leading of the singing was entrusted to the children of the charity school under the direction of the clerk, a custom which had existed since the seventeenth century. The chancel was never used for the choir, and the children sat up in the gallery at the west end, on either side of the organ. In a City church that Dickens attended the choir was limited to two girls.The organ was so out of order that he could ‘hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music.’ When the service began he was so depressed that, as he says,I gave but little heed to our dull manner of ambling through the service; to the brisk clerk's manner of encouraging us to try a note or two at psalm time; to the gallery congregation's manner of enjoying a shrill duet, without a notion of time or tune; to the whity-brown man's manner of shutting the minister into the pulpit, and being very particular with the lock of the door, as if he were a dangerous animal.Elsewhere he found in the choir gallery an ‘exhausted charity school’ of four boys and two girls. The congregations were small, a state of things which at any rate satisfied Mrs. Lirriper, who had a pew at St. Clement Danes and was ‘partial to the evening service not too crowded.’InSunday under Three Headswe have a vivid picture of the state of things at a fashionable church. Carriages roll up, richly dressed people take their places and inspect each other through their glasses.The organ peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise, stare about them and converse in whispers.Dickens passes from church to chapel. Here, he says,the hymn is sung—not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk.It cannot be said that, as far as the music is concerned, either of these descriptions is exaggerated when we remember the time at which they were written (1838). Very few chapels in London had organs, or indeed instruments of any kind, and there is no doubt that the congregations, as a rule,didsing at the tops of their voices, a proceeding known under the more euphonious title of ‘hearty congregational singing.’He gives a far more favourable account of the music in the village church. In the essay just referred to he mentions the fact that he attended a service in a West of England church where the service ‘was spoken—not merely read—by a grey-headed minister.’The psalms were accompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationed in a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end; and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this portion of the service.But if the church music in England was not of a very high quality when Dickens wrote the above,it was, according to his own account, far superior to what he heard in certain churches in Italy. When in Rome he visited St. Peter's, where he was quite unimpressed by the music.I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing.On another occasion he attended church at Genoa on a feast day, and he writes thus about the music:The organ played away lustily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in a little gallery opposite the band, hammered away on the desk before him, with a scroll, and a tenor, without any voice, sang. The band played one way, the organ played another, the singer went a third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, and flourished his scroll on some principle of his own; apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. I never did hear such a discordant din.Parish ClerksWe have but few references to parish clerks in the novels.Mr. Wopsle (G.E.)—whom Mr. Andrew Lang calls ‘one of the best of Dickens' minor characters’—‘punished the Amens tremendously,’14and when he gave out the psalms—always giving the whole verse—he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say ‘You have heard our friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this style.’ This gentleman subsequently became a ‘play-actor,’ but failed to achieve the success he desired. Solomon Daisy (B.R.) is bell-ringer and parish clerk of Chigwell, though we hear nothing of his exploits in these capacities. However, he must have been a familiar figure to the villagers as he stood in his little desk on the Sunday, giving out the psalms and leading the singing, because when in the rifled and dismantled Maypole he appeals to the poor witless old Willet as to whether he did not know him—‘You know us, don't you, Johnny?’ said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. ‘Daisy, you know—Chigwell Church—bell-ringer—little desk on Sundays—eh, Johnny?’Mr. Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered as it were mechanically: ‘Let us sing to the praise and glory of—’‘Yes, to be sure,’ cried the little man hastily, ‘that's it, that's me, Johnny.’Besides the numerous body of more or less distinguished artists whom the novelist introduces to us and whose achievements are duly set forth in these pages, there are two others whose connexion with Cloisterham gives them a prominent position in our list. One of these is the Rev. Mr. Crisparkle (E.D.), Minor Canon of Cloisterham:early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like.What a contrast to the Stiggins and Chadband type! He is a member of the ‘Alternate Musical Wednesdays’ Society, and amongst his lesser duties is that of corrector-in-chief of the un-Dean-like English of the cathedral verger.It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early household, very softly touching his piano and practising his parts in concerted vocal music.Over a closet in his dining-room, where occasional refreshments were kept,a portrait of Handel in a flowing wig beamed down at the spectator, with a knowing air of being up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue.The Minor Canon is a warm admirer of Jasper'smusical talents, and on one occasion in particular is much impressed with his singing.I must thank you, Jasper, for the pleasure with which I have heard you to-day. Beautiful! Delightful!And thus we are introduced to the other musician, whose position at Cloisterham Cathedral is almost as much a mystery as that of Edwin Drood himself. He was the lay precentor or lay clerk, and he was also a good choirmaster. It is unnecessary to criticize or examine too closely the exact position that Jasper held. In answer to a question on this subject, Mr. B. Luard-Selby, the present organist of Rochester Cathedral, writes thus:We have never had in the choir of Rochester Cathedral such a musical functionary as Dickens describes inThe Mystery of Edwin Drood. The only person approaching Jasper in the choir is one of the lay clerks who looks after the music, but who of course has nothing to do withsettingthe music for the month. I don't think Dickens had much idea of church order or of cathedral worship, though he may have gone over the cathedral with a verger on occasions. The music of a cathedral is always in the hands of the precentor, assisted by the organist.It is Edwin Drood himself who says that Jasper was lay precentor or lay clerk at the cathedral. He had a great reputation as a choir-trainer and teacher of music, but he is already weary of hisposition and takes little notice of words of eulogy. He was well acquainted with the old melodies, and on one occasion we find him sitting at the piano singing brave songs to Mr. Sapsea.No kickshaw ditties, favourites with national enemies, but ... genuine George the Third home brewed, exhorting him (as ‘my brave boys’) to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but this island, and all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical forms of land soever, besides sweeping the sea in all directions. In short he rendered it pretty clear that Providence made a distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, and so many other verminous peoples.We have a different picture of him on another occasion, as he sits ‘chanting choir music in a low and beautiful voice, for two or three hours’—a somewhat unusual exercise even for the most enthusiastic choirmaster. But this was before the strange journey with Durdles, and we can only guess at the weird thoughts which were passing through the musician's mind as he sat in his lonely room.We have only a brief reference to the choir of Cloisterham Cathedral. Towards the end we read of them ‘struggling into their nightgowns’ before the service, while they subsequently are ‘as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off as they werebut now to get them on’—and these were almost the last words that came from the Master's pen.AnthemsThere is an interesting reference to anthems in connexion with the Foundling Hospital,15an institution which Dickens mentions several times. Mr. Wilding (N.T.), after he had been pumped on by his lawyer in order to clear his head, names the composers of the anthems he had been accustomed to sing at the Foundling.Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel collection.Mr. Wilding had a scheme of forming his household retainers and dependents into a singing-class in the warehouse, and a choir in the neighbouring church. Only one member, Joey Ladle, refused to join, for fear he should ‘muddle the 'armony,’ and his remark thatHandel must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much for to go and say the same thing so many times overis certainly not lacking in originality.Hymns and Hymn-TunesThere are many purists in church music who object to adaptations of any kind, and we do not know what their feelings are on reading the account of the meeting of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. In order to vary the proceedings Mr. Anthony Humm announced thatBrother Mordlin had adapted the beautiful words of ‘Who hasn't heard of a Jolly Young Waterman’ to the tune of the Old Hundredth, which he would request them to join in singing. (Great applause.) And so the song commenced, the chairman giving out two lines at a time, in proper orthodox fashion.It was this air that Mr. Jerry's dog, as already related, ground out of the barrel-organ, but, besides this particular melody, we do not find that Dickens mentions any other hymn-tune. The hymns referred to are rather more in number. InThe Wreck of the Golden MaryMrs. Atherfield sang Little Lucy to sleep with the Evening Hymn. There is a veiled reference to Ken's Morning Hymn inO.C.S., where Sampson Brass says:‘Here we are, Mr. Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course—our course of duty, sir.’Dr. Watts makes several appearances, Dickensmade the acquaintance of this noted hymnist in early youth (see p.7), and makes good use of his knowledge. InThe Cricket on the HearthMrs. Peerybingle asks John if he ever learnt ‘How doth the little’ when he went to school. ‘Not to quite know it,’ John returned. ‘I was very near it once.’ Another of the Doctor's hymns is suggested by the behaviour of the Young Tetterbys (H.M.).The contentions between the Tetterbys' children for the milk and water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts.The pages of history abound with instances of misguided amateurs who have amended the hymns (and tunes) of others in order to bring them into their way of thinking, and a prominent place in their ranks must be assigned to Miss Monflathers (O.C.S.), who managed to parody the good Doctor's meaning to an alarming extent and to insist thatIn books, or work or healthful play16is only applicable togenteelchildren, while all poor people's children, such as Little Nell, should spend their time.In work, work, work. In work alway,Let my first years be passed,That I may give for ev'ry daySome good account at last,which is far from the good Doctor's meaning.Dr. Strong, David Copperfield's second schoolmaster, was fond of quoting this great authority on mischief, but Mr. Wickfield suggests that Dr. Watts, had he known mankind well, would also have written ‘Satan finds some mischief still for busy hands to do.’Some years ago a question was raised inNotes and Queriesas to the identity of the ‘No. 4 Collection’ of hymns which appeared to afford consolation to Job Trotter. No answer was vouchsafed, the fact being that the title is a pure invention, and no such collection has ever existed. It is scarcely necessary to add that history is silent as to the identity of the hymn-book which Uriah Heep was reading when David Copperfield and others visited him in prison.We are indebted to Dickens for the introduction to the literary world of Adelaide Procter, many of whose sacred verses have found their way into our hymnals. The novelist wrote an introduction to herLegends and Lyrics, in which he tells the story of how, as editor ofHousehold Words, he acceptedverses sent him from time to time by a Miss Mary Berwick, and only discovered, some months later, that his contributor was the daughter of his friend Procter, who was known under thenom de plumeof Barry Cornwall.There seems to be some difficulty in regard to the authorship of the hymnHear my prayer, O Heavenly Father,Ere I lay me down to sleep;Bid Thy angels, pure and holy,Round my bed their vigil keep.It has already been pointed out (seeChoir, February, 1912) that this hymn appeared in the Christmas number ofHousehold Wordsfor 1856, in a story entitledThe Wreck of the Golden Mary. The chief authorities on the works of Dickens claim it as his composition, and include it in his collected works. On the other hand, Miller, in hisOur Hymns(1866), states that Miss Harriet Parr informed him that the hymn, and the story ofPoor Dick, in which it occurs, were both her own. We may add that when Dr. Allon applied for permission to include it in his new hymn-book Dickens referred him to the authoress.Dr. Julian takes this as authoritative, and has nohesitation in ascribing the hymn to Miss Parr. On the other hand, Forster records in hisLife of Dickensthat a clergyman, the Rev. R.H. Davies, had been struck by this hymn when it appeared inHousehold Words, and wrote to thank him for it. ‘I beg to thank you,’ Dickens answered (Christmas Eve, 1856), ‘for your very acceptable letter, not the less because I am myself the writer you refer to.’ Here Dickens seems to claim the authorship, but it is possible he was referring to something else in the magazine when he wrote these words, and not to the hymn.14Dickens frequently uses the word in this sense. Tom Pinch says, ‘I shall punish the Boar's Head tremendously.’ It is also interesting to note that Dickens uses the phrase ‘I don't think’ in its modern slang meaning on at least two occasions. Tom Pinch remarks ‘I'm a nice man, I don't think, as John used to say’ (M.C.6), and Sam Weller (P.P.38) says to Mr. Winkle ‘you're a amiably-disposed young man, sir, I don't think.’ Mark Tapley uses the expression ‘a pious fraud’ (M.C.13).15‘Pet’ (L.D.2) was a frequent visitor to the Hospital.16From the poem onIndustry.CHAPTER VISONGS AND SOME SINGERSThenumerous songs and vocal works referred to by Dickens in his novels and other writings furnish perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most instructive, branch of this subject. His knowledge of song and ballad literature was extraordinary, and he did not fail to make good use of it. Not only are the quotations always well chosen and to the point, but the use of them has greatly added to the interest of such characters as Swiveller, Micawber, Cuttle, and many others, all of whom are of a very musical turn of mind. These songs may be conveniently divided into three classes, the first containing the national and popular airs of the eighteenth century, of which ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Sally in our Alley’ are notable examples. Many of these are referred to in the following pages, while a full list will be found on pp.135–163.I.—National SongsThere are numerous references to ‘Rule Britannia.’ Besides those mentioned elsewhere we havethe picture of little David Copperfield in his dismal home.What evenings when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes as ‘Rule Britannia,’ or ‘Away with Melancholy’!No wonder he finally went to sleep over them!InDombey and SonOld Sol has a wonderful story of theCharming Sallybeing wrecked in the Baltic, while the crew sang ‘Rule Britannia’ as the ship went down, ‘ending with one awful scream in chorus.’ Walter gives the date of the tragedy as 1749. (The song was written in 1740.)Captain Cuttle had a theory that ‘Rule Britannia,’ ‘which the garden angels sang about so many times over,’ embodied the outlines of the British Constitution. It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the Captain's ‘garden angels’ appear in the song as ‘guardian angels.’Mark Tapley, when in America, entertained a grey-haired black man by whistling this tune with all his might and main. The entry of Martin Chuzzlewit caused him to stop the tuneat that point where Britons generally are supposed to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never—In the article on ‘Wapping Workhouse’ (U.T.) Dickens introduces the first verse of the song in criticizing the workhouse system and its treatment of old people, and in theAmerican Noteshe tells us that he left Canada with ‘Rule Britannia’ sounding in his ears.‘British Grenadiers,’ said Mr. Bucket to Mr. Bagnet, ‘there's a tune to warm an Englishman up!Couldyou give us “British Grenadiers,” my fine fellow?’ And the ‘fine fellow,’ who was none other than Bagnet junior (also known as ‘Woolwich’), promptlyfetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much enlivened, beats time, and never fails to come in sharp with the burden ‘Brit Ish Gra-a-anadeers.’Our national anthem is frequently referred to. In the description of the public dinner (S.B.S.19)—‘God Save the Queen’ is sung by the professional gentlemen, the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as ‘perfectly electrical.’On another occasion we are told the company, sang the national anthem with national independence, each one singing it according to his own ideas oftime and tune. This is the usual way of singing it at the present day.In addition to those above mentioned we find references to ‘The Marseillaise’ and ‘Ça ira,’ both of which Dickens says he heard in Paris. InLittle DorritMr. Meagles says:As to Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed.Without disputing the decided opinion expressed by the speaker, there is no doubt that some would give the palm to ‘Ça ira,’ which the novelist refers to in one of his letters. The words of this song were adapted in 1790 to the tune of ‘Carillon National.’ This was a favourite air of Marie Antoinette, and she frequently played it on the harpsichord. After her downfall she heard it as a cry of hatred against herself—it followed her from Versailles to the capital, and she would hear it from her prison and even when going to her death.When Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley were on their way to America, one of their fellow travellers wasan English gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession belonging to its strong-box besides the key [and who] grew eloquentupon the subject of the rights of man, and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn constantly.In an article on this tune in theChoir(Nov., 1911) it is stated that it was composed in 1792 at Strasburg, but received its name from the fact that a band of soldiers going from Marseilles to Paris made the new melody their marching tune. A casual note about it appears to be the only musical reference inA Tale of Two Cities.From America we have ‘Hail Columbia’ and ‘Yankee Doodle.’ InMartin Chuzzlewitwe meet the musical coach-driver who played snatches of tunes on the key bugle. A friend of his went to America, and wrote home saying he was always singing ‘Ale Columbia.’ In hisAmerican NotesDickens tells about a Cleveland newspaper which announced that America had ‘whipped England twice, and that soon they would sing “Yankee Doodle” in Hyde Park and “Hail Columbia” in the scarlet courts of Westminster.’II.—Songs from 1780–1840We then come to a group of songs dating, roughly, from 1780. This includes several popularsea songs by Charles Dibdin and others, some ballad opera airs, theIrish Melodiesand other songs by Thomas Moore, and a few sentimental ditties. Following these we have the songs of the early Victorian period, consisting of more sentimental ditties of a somewhat feebler type, with a few comic and nigger minstrel songs. The task of identifying the numerous songs referred to has been interesting, but by no means easy. No one who has not had occasion to refer to them can have any idea of the hundreds, nay, of the thousands, of song-books that were turned out from the various presses under an infinitude of titles during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There is nothing like them at the present day, and the reasons for their publication have long ceased to exist. It should be explained that the great majority of these books contained the words only, very few of them being furnished with the musical notes. Dickens has made use of considerably over a hundred different songs. In some cases the references are somewhat obscure, but their elucidation is necessary to a proper understanding of the text. An example of this occurs in Chapter IX ofMartin Chuzzlewit, where we are told the history of the variousnames given to the young red-haired boy at Mrs. Todgers' commercial boarding-house. When the Pecksniffs visited the househe was generally known among the gentlemen as Bailey Junior, a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction perhaps to Old Bailey, and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life and has been immortalized in a ballad.The song referred to here is ‘Unfortunate Miss Bailey,’ by George Colman, and sung by Mr. Mathews in the comic opera ofLove Laughs at Locksmiths. It tells the story of a maid who hung herself, while her persecutor took to drinking ratafia.Dickens often refers to these old song-books, either under real or imaginary names. Captain Cuttle gives ‘Stanfell's Budget’ as the authority for one of his songs, and this was probably the song-book that formed one of the ornaments which he placed in the room he was preparing for Florence Dombey. Other common titles are the ‘Prentice's Warbler,’ which Simon Tappertit used, ‘Fairburn's Comic Songster,’ and the ‘Little Warbler,’ which is mentioned two or three times. Of the songs belonging to this second period, some are embedded in ballad operas and plays, popular enough in their day, butlong since forgotten. An example is Mr. Jingle's quotation when he tells the blushing Rachel that he is goingIn hurry, post haste for a licence,In hurry, ding dong I come back,though he omitted the last two lines:For that you shan't need bid me twice hence,I'll be here and there in a crack.This verse is sung by Lord Grizzle in Fielding'sTom Thumb, as arranged by Kane O'Hara.Paul and Virginiais mentioned by Mrs. Flora Finching (L.D.) as being one of the things that ought to have been returned to Arthur Clennam when their engagement was broken off. This was a ballad opera by Reeve and Mazzinghi, and the opening number is the popular duet ‘See from ocean rising,’ concerning which there is a humorous passage in ‘The Steam Excursion’ (S.B.), where it is sung by one of the Miss Tauntons and Captain Helves. The last-named, ‘after a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming,’ beganin that grunting tone in which a man gets down, heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. This in private circles is frequently designated a ‘bass voice.’[MIDI][Score to See from ocean rising]See from ocean risingBright flame, the orb of day;From yon grove the varied songShall slumber from Virginia chase, chase away,Slumber from Virginia chase, chase away.Dickens is not quite correct in this description, as the part of Paul was created by Incledon, the celebrated tenor, but there are still to be found basses who insist on singing tenor when they think that part wants their assistance.

The clarionet is associated with the fortunes of Mr. Frederick Dorrit, who played the instrument at the theatre where his elder niece was a dancer, and where Little Dorrit sought an engagement. After the rehearsal was over she and her sister went to take him home.

He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book.... The carpenters had a joke that he was dead without being aware of it.

At the theatre he had no part in what was going on except the part written for the clarionet. In his young days his house had been the resort of singers and players. When the fortunes of the family changed his clarionet was taken away from him, on the ground that it was a ‘low instrument.’ It was subsequently restored to him, but he never played it again.

Of quite a different stamp was one of the characters inGoing into Society, who played the clarionet in a band at a Wild Beast Show, and played it all wrong. He was somewhat eccentric in dress, as he had on ‘a white Roman shirt and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard skin.’ We are told nothing about him, except that he refused to know his old friends. In his story of theSeven Poor TravellersDickens found the clarionet-player of the Rochester Waits so communicative that he accompanied the party across an open green called the Vines,

and assisted—in the French sense—at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies.

A notable bassoon player was Mr. Bagnet, who had a voice somewhat resembling his instrument. The ex-artilleryman kept a little music shop in a street near the Elephant and Castle. There were

a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music.

It was to this shop that Bucket the detective came under the pretence of wanting a second-hand‘wiolinceller’ (see p.29). In the course of conversation it turns out that Master Bagnet (otherwise ‘Woolwich’) ‘plays the fife beautiful,’ and he performs some popular airs for the benefit of his audience. Mr. Bucket also claims to have played the fife himself when a boy, ‘not in a scientific way, but by ear.’

Two references to the bagpipes deserve notice. One is inDavid Copperfield, where the novelist refers to his own early experiences as a shorthand reporter. He has no high opinion of the speeches he used to take down.

One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the old drone in the newspapers.

InO.M.F.(II.) we read of Charley Hexam's fellow pupils keeping themselves awake

by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe.

The peculiar subdued noise caused by a lot of children in a school is certainly suggestive of the instrument.

Little is said about the trombone. We are told, in reference to the party at Dr. Strong's (D.C.), that the good Doctor knew as much about playing cards as he did about ‘playing the trombone.’ In ‘Our School’ (R.P.) we are told a good deal about the usher who ‘made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things.’

He was rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an evening.

In a similarly dismembered state was the flute which Dickens once saw in a broker's shop. It was ‘complete with the exception of the middle joint.’

This naturally calls to mind the story of the choir librarian who was putting away the vocal parts of a certain funeral anthem. After searching in vain for two missing numbers he was obliged to label the parcel

‘His body is buried in peace.’ Two parts missing.

The references to the organ are both numerous and interesting, and it is pretty evident that thisinstrument had a great attraction for Dickens. The gentle Tom Pinch (M.C.), whom Gissing calls ‘a gentleman who derives his patent of gentility direct from God Almighty,’ first claims our attention. He used to play the organ at the village church ‘for nothing.’ It was a simple instrument, ‘the sweetest little organ you ever heard,’ provided with wind by the action of the musician's feet, and thus Tom was independent of a blower, though he was so beloved that

there was not a man or boy in all the village and away to the turnpike (tollman included) but would have blown away for him till he was black in the face.

What a delight it must have been to him to avail himself of the opportunity to play the organ in the cathedral when he went to meet Martin!

As the grand tones resounded through the church they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart.

And he would have gone on playing till midnight ‘but for a very earthy verger,’ who insisted on locking up the cathedral and turning him out.

On one occasion, while he was practising at the church, the miserable Pecksniff entered the building and, hiding behind a pew, heard the conversationbetween Tom and Mary that led to the former being dismissed from the architect's office, so he had to leave his beloved organ, and mightily did the poor fellow miss it when he went to London! Being an early riser, he had been accustomed to practise every morning, and now he was reduced to taking long walks about London, a poor substitute indeed!

Nor was the organ the only instrument that he could play, for we read how he would spend half his nights poring over the ‘jingling anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back parlour,’ and amongst the household treasures that he took to London were his music and an old fiddle.

The picture which forms ourfrontispieceshows Tom Pinch playing his favourite instrument. At the sale of the original drawings executed by ‘Phiz’ forMartin Chuzzlewitthis frontispiece, which is an epitome of the salient characters and scenes in the novel, was sold for £35.

We read inChristmas Storiesthat

Silas JorganPlayed the organ,

but we are not told the name of the artist who at the concert at the Eagle (S.B.C.4) accompanied a comic song on the organ—and such an organ!

Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost ‘four hundred pound,’ which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was ‘not dear neither.’

The singer was probably either Howell or Glindon. Dickens appears to have visited the Eagle Tavern in 1835 or 1836. It was then a notable place of entertainment consisting of gardens with an orchestra, and the ‘Grecian Saloon,’ which was furnished with an organ and a ‘self-acting piano.’ Here concerts were given every evening, which in Lent took a sacred turn, and consisted of selections from Handel and Mozart. In 1837 the organ was removed, and a new one erected by Parsons.

The Eagle gained a wide reputation through its being introduced into a once popular song.

Up and down the City Road,In and out the Eagle,That's the way the money goes,Pop goes the weasel.

This verse was subsequently modified (for nursery purposes) thus:

Half a pound of tuppenny rice,Half a pound of treacle,That's the way the money goes,9Pop goes the weasel.

Many explanations have been given of ‘weasel.’ Some say it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or ‘popped’) to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. A third (and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply a catch phrase, without any meaning.

There is a notable reference to the organ inLittle Dorrit. Arthur Clennam goes to call on old Frederick Dorrit, the clarionet player, and is directed to the house where he lived. ‘There were so many lodgers in this house that the door-post seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral organ is of stops,’ and Clennam hesitates for a time, ‘doubtful which might be the clarionet stop.’

Further on in the same novel we are told that it was the organ that Mrs. Finching was desirous of learning.

I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr. F's death that I would learn the organ of which I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a note.

The following fine description of the tones of an organ occurs inThe Chimes:

The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swelling by degrees the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choirand nave. Expanding more and more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak, the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, and it soared into the sky.

The effect of this on Trotty Veck was very different from that which another organ had on the benevolent old lady we read of inOur Parish. She subscribed £20 towards a new instrument for the parish church, and was so overcome when she first heard it that she had to be carried out by the pew-opener.

There are various references to the organs in the City churches, and probably the description of one of them given inDombey and Sonwould suit most instruments of the period.

The organ rumbled and rolled as if it had got the colic, for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out.

In real life the barrel-organ was a frequent source of annoyance to Dickens, who found its ceaseless strains very trying when he was busy writing, and who had as much trouble in evicting the grinders as David Copperfield's aunt had with the donkeys.

However, he takes a very mild revenge on this deservedly maligned instrument in his works, and the references are, as usual, of a humorous character.A barrel-organ formed a part of the procession to celebrate the election of Mr. Tulrumble10as Mayor of Mudfog, but the player put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played another.

This instrument had an extraordinary effect on Major Tpschoffki, familiarly and more easily known as ‘Chops,’ the dwarf, ‘spirited but not proud,’ who was desirous of ‘Going into Society’ (G.S.), and who had got it into his head that he was entitled to property:

His ideas respectin' his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ, and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time he would screech out, ‘Toby, I feel my property coming—grind away! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a-jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England.’ Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind.

Dickens found the streets in New York very different from those in London, and specially remarks how quiet they were—no itinerant musiciansor showmen of any kind. He could only remember hearing one barrel-organ with a dancing-monkey. ‘Beyond that, nothing lively, no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirling cage.’

We must not forget that he has two references to pipe organs in hisAmerican Notes. When he visited the Blind School at Boston he heard a voluntary played on the organ by one of the pupils, while at St. Louis he was informed that the Jesuit College was to be supplied with an organ sent from Belgium.

The barrel-organ brings to mind Jerry and his troupe of dancing-dogs (O.C.S.), especially the unfortunate animal who had lost a halfpenny during the day, and consequently had to go without his supper. In fact, his master made the punishment fit the crime; for, having set the stop, he made the dog play the organ while the rest had their evening meal.

When the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl; but he immediately checked it on his master looking round and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.

InDombey and Sonthere is a very apt comparison of Mr. Feeder, B.A., to this instrument. He wasDoctor Blimber's assistant master, and was entrusted with the education of little Paul.

Mr. Feeder, B.A. ... was a kind of human barrel-organ with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable, but it had not been.

So he had only one barrel, his sole occupation being to ‘bewilder the young ideas of Dr. Blimber's young gentlemen.’ Sometimes he had his Virgil stop on, and at other times his Herodotus stop. In trying to keep up the comparison, however, Dickens makes a curious mistake. In the above quotation Feeder is assigned one barrel only, while in Chapter XLI we are told that he had ‘his other barrels on a shelf behind him.’

We find another comparison inLittle Dorrit, when the long-suffering Pancks turns round on Casby, his employer, and exposes his hypocrisy. Pancks, who has had much difficulty in getting his master's rents from the tenants, makes up his mind to leave him; and before doing so he tells the whole truth about Casby to the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard. ‘Here's the Stop,’ said Pancks, ‘that sets the tune to be ground. And there is but one tune, and its name is “Grind! Grind! Grind!”’

Although the guitar was a fashionable instrument sixty years ago, there are but few references to it. This was the instrument that enabled the three Miss Briggses, each of them performers, to eclipse the glory of the Miss Tauntons, who could only manage a harp. On the eventful day of ‘The Steam Excursion’ (S.B.) the three sisters brought their instruments, carefully packed up in dark green cases,

which were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat, accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take at least a week's incessant playing to get through.

At a subsequent stage of the proceedings they were asked to play, and after replacing a broken string, and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, they gave ‘a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars,’ and secured an encore, thus completely overwhelming their rivals. In the account of theFrench Watering-Place(R.P.) we read about a guitar on the pier, ‘to which a boy or woman sings without any voice little songs without any tune.’

On one of his night excursions in the guise of an ‘Uncommercial Traveller’ Dickens discovered a stranded Spaniard, named Antonio. In response to a general invitation ‘the swarthy youth’ takesup his cracked guitar and gives them the ‘feeblest ghost of a tune,’ while the inmates of the miserable den kept time with their heads.

Dora used to delight David Copperfield by singing enchanting ballads in the French language and accompanying herself ‘on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar,’ though subsequent references show it was that instrument and none other.

We read inLittle Dorritthat Young John Chivery wore ‘pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.’ This appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual number being about nine.

9Or, ‘Mix it up and make it nice.’

10The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, 1837.

Manymusical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. Blathers, the Bow Street officer (O.T.), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of castanets. Miss Miggs (B.R.) clanks her pattens as if they were a pair of cymbals. Mr. Bounderby (H.T.), during his conversation with Harthouse,

with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine;

and in the same work the electric wires rule ‘a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.’

Perhaps the most extraordinary comparison is that instituted by Mrs. Lirriper in reference to her late husband.

My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel.

What a vivid imagination the good woman had!Her descriptive powers remind us of those possessed by Mrs. Gamp in speaking of the father of the mysterious Mrs. Harris.

As pleasant a singer, Mr. Chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a Jew's-harp in the bass notes.

There are many humorous references to remarkable performances on various instruments more or less musical in their nature. During the election at Eatanswill the crier performed two concertos on his bell, and shortly afterwards followed them up with a fantasia on the same instrument. Dickens suffered much from church bells, and gives vent to his feelings about them inLittle Dorrit, where he says that

Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous.

In hisPictures from Italyhe wrote thus:

At Genoa the bells of the church ring incessantly, not in peals, or any known form of sound, but in horrible, irregular, jerking dingle, dingle, dingle; with a sudden stop at every fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening.... The noise is supposed to be particularly obnoxious to evil spirits.

But it was these same bells, which he found so maddening, that inspired him with the titleof a well-known story. He had chosen a subject, but was at a loss for a name. As he sat working one morning there suddenly rose up from Genoa

the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead....Only two days later came a letter in which not a syllable was written but ‘We have heardThe Chimesat midnight, Master Shallow,’ and I knew he had discovered what he wanted.11

Yet, in spite of all this, Dickens shows—through his characters—a deep interest in bells and bell-lore. Little Paul Dombey finds a man mending the clocks at Dr. Blimber's Academy, and asks a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks; as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding-bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living; and then the precocious small boy proceeds to give the astonished clockmaker some useful information about King Alfred's candles and curfew-bells.

As Smike and Nicholas tramp their long journeyto Portsmouth they hear the sheep-bells tinkling on the downs. To Tom Pinch journeying Londonwards ‘the brass work on the harness was a complete orchestra of little bells.’

What a terror the bells are to Jonas Chuzzlewit just before he starts on his evil journey! He hears

the ringers practising in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of their bells was almost maddening. Curse the clamouring bells! they seemed to know that he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a crowd of voices to all the town! Would they never be still? They ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and terrible that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise.

The boom of the bell is associated with many of the villains of the novels. Fagin hears it when under sentence of death. Blackpool and Carker hear the accusing bells when in the midst of planning their evil deeds.

We can read the characters of some by the way they ring a bell. The important little Mr. Bailey, when he goes to see his friend Poll Sweedlepipe (M.C.) ‘came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much sound out of the bell as possible,’ while Bob Sawyer gives a pull as if he would bring it up by the roots. Mr. Clennam pulls the rope with a hasty jerk, and Mr. Watkins Tottle with a faltering jerk, while TomPinch gives a gentle pull. And how angry Mr. Mantalini is with Newman Noggs because he keeps him

‘ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to throw a strong man into convulsions, upon my life and soul,—oh demmit.’

The introduction of electric bells has been a great trial to those who used to vent their wrath on the wire-pulled article or the earlier bell-rope, which used not infrequently to add unnecessary fuel by coming incontinently down on the head of the aggrieved one. What a pull the fierce gentleman must have given whose acquaintance Mr. Pickwick made when he was going to Bath! He had been kept waiting for his buttered toast, so he (Captain Dowler)

rang the bell with great violence, and told the waiter he'd better bring the toast in five seconds, or he'd know the reason why.

Dickens rang far more changes on the bells than there is space to enumerate; but I have shown to what extent he makes their sound a commentary on innumerable phases of life. A slight technical knowledge of bell phraseology is found inBarnaby Rudge(7), where he mentions the variations known as a ‘triple bob major.’ Finally there is an interesting reference inMaster Humphrey's Clockto ause of the bell which has now passed into history. Belinda says in a postscript to a letter to Master Humphrey, ‘The bellman, rendered impatient by delay, is ringing dreadfully in the passage’; while in a second PS. she says, ‘I open this to say the bellman is gone, and that you must not expect it till the next post.’

In the old days it was the custom for the letter-carriers to collect letters by ringing a bell.

There is no doubt that a most extraordinary, certainly a most original, musical effect is that secured by Mr. George (B.H.), who had just finished smoking.

‘Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?’ he adds, after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe.‘Tune,’ replies the old man. ‘No, we never have tunes here.’‘That's the “Dead March” inSaul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject.’

‘Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?’ he adds, after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe.

‘Tune,’ replies the old man. ‘No, we never have tunes here.’

‘That's the “Dead March” inSaul. They bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject.’

Surely a highly original way of bringing a conversation to a close!

This march is referred to inOur Mutual Friend, where Mr. Wilfer suggests that going through life with Mrs. Wilfer is like keeping time to the ‘Dead March’ inSaul, from which singular simile we may gather that this lady was not the liveliest of companions.

Several other instruments are casually mentioned. Mr. Hardy (S.B.T.7) was a master of many accomplishments.

He could sing comic songs, imitate hackney coachmen and fowls, play airs on his chin, and execute concertos on the Jew's harp.

The champion ‘chin’ performer of the early Victorian period was Michael Boai, ‘The celebrated chin melodist,’ who was announced to perform ‘some of his admired pieces’ at many of the places of entertainment. There is another reference to this extraordinary way of producing music inSketches by Boz, where Mrs. Tippin performed an air with variations on the guitar, ‘accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin.’ To return to Mr. Hardy, this gentleman was evidently deeply interested in all sorts and degrees of music, but he got out of his depth in a conversation with the much-travelled Captain Helves. After the three Miss Briggses had finished their guitar performances, Mr. Hardy approached the Captain with the question, ‘Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?’

‘Didyouever hear a tom-tom, sir?’ sternly inquired the Captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended.‘A what?’ asked Hardy, rather taken aback.‘A tom-tom.’‘Never.’‘Nor a gum-gum?’‘Never.’‘Whatisa gum-gum?’ eagerly inquired several young ladies.

‘Didyouever hear a tom-tom, sir?’ sternly inquired the Captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended.

‘A what?’ asked Hardy, rather taken aback.

‘A tom-tom.’

‘Never.’

‘Nor a gum-gum?’

‘Never.’

‘Whatisa gum-gum?’ eagerly inquired several young ladies.

The question is unanswered to this day, though Hardy afterwards suggests it is another name for a humbug.

When Dickens visited the school where the half-time system was in force, he found the boys undergoing military and naval drill. A small boy played the fife while the others went through their exercises. After that a boys' band appeared, the youngsters being dressed in a neat uniform. Then came a choral class, who sang ‘the praises of a summer's day to a harmonium.’ In the arithmetical exercises the small piper excels (U.T.29).

Wise as the serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to that instrument.

This was written when the serpent was practically extinct, but Dickens would be very familiar with the name of the instrument, and may have seen and heard it in churches in his younger days.

In referring to another boy's attempt at solvingthe arithmetical puzzles, he mentions the cymbals, combined with a faint memory of St. Paul.

I observe the player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then rather than not cut in at all; but I take that to be in the way of his instrument.

InGreat ExpectationsMr. Wopsle, who is a parish clerk by profession, had an ambition not only to tread the boards, but to start off as Hamlet. His appearance was not a success, and the audience was derisive.

On his taking the recorders—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door—he was called upon unanimously for ‘Rule Britannia.’

Reference has already been made to Bucket's music-shop, so we must not forget to visit Caleb Plummer's little room, where there were

scores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture.

The old man made a rude kind of harp specially for his poor blind daughter, and on which Dot used to play when she visited the toy-maker's. Caleb's musical contribution would be ‘a Bacchanalian song, something about a sparkling bowl,’ which much annoyed his grumpy employer.

‘What! you're singing, are you?’ said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. ‘Go it,Ican't sing.’Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.

‘What! you're singing, are you?’ said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. ‘Go it,Ican't sing.’

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.

The wonderful duet between the cricket and the kettle at the commencement ofThe Cricket on the Hearthcertainly deserves mention, though it is rather difficult to know whether to class the performers as instrumentalists or singers. The kettle began it with a series of short vocal snorts, which at first it checked in the bud, but finally it burst into a stream of song, ‘while the lid performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.’ Then the cricket came in with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and at it they went in fierce rivalry until ‘the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire.’

Dickens was certainly partial to the cricket, for elsewhere (M.H.C.) we read of the clock that

makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth.

There are two or three references to the key bugle, which also used to be known as the Kent bugle. It was a popular instrument half a century ago, asthe addition of keys gave it a much greater range of notes than the ordinary bugle possessed. A notable though inefficient performer was the driver who took Martin Chuzzlewit up to London.

He was musical, besides, and had a little key bugle in his pocket on which, whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second.

This instrument was on Mr. Feeder'sagenda.

Two more instruments demand our attention. At the marriage of Tackleton and May Fielding (C.H.) there were to be marrow-bones and cleavers, while to celebrate the union of Trotty Veck's daughter Meg and Richard they had a band including the aforesaid instruments and also the drum and the bells. It was formerly the custom for butchers' assistants to provide themselves with marrow-bones and cleavers for musical effects.Each cleaver was ground so that when it was struck with the bone it emitted a certain note.12A complete band would consist of eight men, with their cleavers so tuned as to give an octave of notes. After more or less practice they would offer their services as bandsmen on the occasionof marriage ceremonies, which they had a wonderful faculty for locating, and they would provide music (of a kind)ad libitumuntil the requisite fee was forthcoming. If their services were declined the butchers would turn up all the same, and make things very unpleasant for the marriage party. The custom dates from the eighteenth century, and though it has gradually fallen into disuse a marrow-bone and cleaver band is still available in London for those who want it. A band took part in a wedding ceremony at Clapham as recently as the autumn of 1911.

The following extract, referring to the second marriage of Mr. Dombey, shows what bridal parties had to put up with in the good old days:

The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too.The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge13; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off ; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe.

Other instruments casually referred to are the Pan's pipes, which in one place is also called a mouth-organ (S.B.S.20), the flageolet, and thetriangle. It is difficult to classify the walking-stick on which Mr. Jennings Rudolph played tunes before he went behind the parlour door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors, edgetools, and animals (S.B.C.8).

11Forster,Life of Charles Dickens.

12This is rather a modern development.

13Near King's Cross Station (G.N.R.).

Dickenshas not much to say about church music as such, but the references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light upon it during the earlier years of his life. InOur Parish(S.B.) we read about the old naval officer who

finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, and offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together.

This reminds us that during the first half of last century, and indeed later in many places, the church choir as we know it did not exist, and the leading of the singing was entrusted to the children of the charity school under the direction of the clerk, a custom which had existed since the seventeenth century. The chancel was never used for the choir, and the children sat up in the gallery at the west end, on either side of the organ. In a City church that Dickens attended the choir was limited to two girls.The organ was so out of order that he could ‘hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music.’ When the service began he was so depressed that, as he says,

I gave but little heed to our dull manner of ambling through the service; to the brisk clerk's manner of encouraging us to try a note or two at psalm time; to the gallery congregation's manner of enjoying a shrill duet, without a notion of time or tune; to the whity-brown man's manner of shutting the minister into the pulpit, and being very particular with the lock of the door, as if he were a dangerous animal.

Elsewhere he found in the choir gallery an ‘exhausted charity school’ of four boys and two girls. The congregations were small, a state of things which at any rate satisfied Mrs. Lirriper, who had a pew at St. Clement Danes and was ‘partial to the evening service not too crowded.’

InSunday under Three Headswe have a vivid picture of the state of things at a fashionable church. Carriages roll up, richly dressed people take their places and inspect each other through their glasses.

The organ peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise, stare about them and converse in whispers.

Dickens passes from church to chapel. Here, he says,

the hymn is sung—not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk.

It cannot be said that, as far as the music is concerned, either of these descriptions is exaggerated when we remember the time at which they were written (1838). Very few chapels in London had organs, or indeed instruments of any kind, and there is no doubt that the congregations, as a rule,didsing at the tops of their voices, a proceeding known under the more euphonious title of ‘hearty congregational singing.’

He gives a far more favourable account of the music in the village church. In the essay just referred to he mentions the fact that he attended a service in a West of England church where the service ‘was spoken—not merely read—by a grey-headed minister.’

The psalms were accompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationed in a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end; and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this portion of the service.

But if the church music in England was not of a very high quality when Dickens wrote the above,it was, according to his own account, far superior to what he heard in certain churches in Italy. When in Rome he visited St. Peter's, where he was quite unimpressed by the music.

I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing.

On another occasion he attended church at Genoa on a feast day, and he writes thus about the music:

The organ played away lustily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in a little gallery opposite the band, hammered away on the desk before him, with a scroll, and a tenor, without any voice, sang. The band played one way, the organ played another, the singer went a third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, and flourished his scroll on some principle of his own; apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. I never did hear such a discordant din.

We have but few references to parish clerks in the novels.Mr. Wopsle (G.E.)—whom Mr. Andrew Lang calls ‘one of the best of Dickens' minor characters’—‘punished the Amens tremendously,’14and when he gave out the psalms—always giving the whole verse—he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say ‘You have heard our friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this style.’ This gentleman subsequently became a ‘play-actor,’ but failed to achieve the success he desired. Solomon Daisy (B.R.) is bell-ringer and parish clerk of Chigwell, though we hear nothing of his exploits in these capacities. However, he must have been a familiar figure to the villagers as he stood in his little desk on the Sunday, giving out the psalms and leading the singing, because when in the rifled and dismantled Maypole he appeals to the poor witless old Willet as to whether he did not know him—

‘You know us, don't you, Johnny?’ said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. ‘Daisy, you know—Chigwell Church—bell-ringer—little desk on Sundays—eh, Johnny?’Mr. Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered as it were mechanically: ‘Let us sing to the praise and glory of—’‘Yes, to be sure,’ cried the little man hastily, ‘that's it, that's me, Johnny.’

‘You know us, don't you, Johnny?’ said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. ‘Daisy, you know—Chigwell Church—bell-ringer—little desk on Sundays—eh, Johnny?’

Mr. Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered as it were mechanically: ‘Let us sing to the praise and glory of—’

‘Yes, to be sure,’ cried the little man hastily, ‘that's it, that's me, Johnny.’

Besides the numerous body of more or less distinguished artists whom the novelist introduces to us and whose achievements are duly set forth in these pages, there are two others whose connexion with Cloisterham gives them a prominent position in our list. One of these is the Rev. Mr. Crisparkle (E.D.), Minor Canon of Cloisterham:

early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like.

What a contrast to the Stiggins and Chadband type! He is a member of the ‘Alternate Musical Wednesdays’ Society, and amongst his lesser duties is that of corrector-in-chief of the un-Dean-like English of the cathedral verger.

It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early household, very softly touching his piano and practising his parts in concerted vocal music.

Over a closet in his dining-room, where occasional refreshments were kept,

a portrait of Handel in a flowing wig beamed down at the spectator, with a knowing air of being up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue.

The Minor Canon is a warm admirer of Jasper'smusical talents, and on one occasion in particular is much impressed with his singing.

I must thank you, Jasper, for the pleasure with which I have heard you to-day. Beautiful! Delightful!

And thus we are introduced to the other musician, whose position at Cloisterham Cathedral is almost as much a mystery as that of Edwin Drood himself. He was the lay precentor or lay clerk, and he was also a good choirmaster. It is unnecessary to criticize or examine too closely the exact position that Jasper held. In answer to a question on this subject, Mr. B. Luard-Selby, the present organist of Rochester Cathedral, writes thus:

We have never had in the choir of Rochester Cathedral such a musical functionary as Dickens describes inThe Mystery of Edwin Drood. The only person approaching Jasper in the choir is one of the lay clerks who looks after the music, but who of course has nothing to do withsettingthe music for the month. I don't think Dickens had much idea of church order or of cathedral worship, though he may have gone over the cathedral with a verger on occasions. The music of a cathedral is always in the hands of the precentor, assisted by the organist.

It is Edwin Drood himself who says that Jasper was lay precentor or lay clerk at the cathedral. He had a great reputation as a choir-trainer and teacher of music, but he is already weary of hisposition and takes little notice of words of eulogy. He was well acquainted with the old melodies, and on one occasion we find him sitting at the piano singing brave songs to Mr. Sapsea.

No kickshaw ditties, favourites with national enemies, but ... genuine George the Third home brewed, exhorting him (as ‘my brave boys’) to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but this island, and all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical forms of land soever, besides sweeping the sea in all directions. In short he rendered it pretty clear that Providence made a distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, and so many other verminous peoples.

We have a different picture of him on another occasion, as he sits ‘chanting choir music in a low and beautiful voice, for two or three hours’—a somewhat unusual exercise even for the most enthusiastic choirmaster. But this was before the strange journey with Durdles, and we can only guess at the weird thoughts which were passing through the musician's mind as he sat in his lonely room.

We have only a brief reference to the choir of Cloisterham Cathedral. Towards the end we read of them ‘struggling into their nightgowns’ before the service, while they subsequently are ‘as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off as they werebut now to get them on’—and these were almost the last words that came from the Master's pen.

There is an interesting reference to anthems in connexion with the Foundling Hospital,15an institution which Dickens mentions several times. Mr. Wilding (N.T.), after he had been pumped on by his lawyer in order to clear his head, names the composers of the anthems he had been accustomed to sing at the Foundling.

Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel collection.

Mr. Wilding had a scheme of forming his household retainers and dependents into a singing-class in the warehouse, and a choir in the neighbouring church. Only one member, Joey Ladle, refused to join, for fear he should ‘muddle the 'armony,’ and his remark that

Handel must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much for to go and say the same thing so many times over

is certainly not lacking in originality.

There are many purists in church music who object to adaptations of any kind, and we do not know what their feelings are on reading the account of the meeting of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. In order to vary the proceedings Mr. Anthony Humm announced that

Brother Mordlin had adapted the beautiful words of ‘Who hasn't heard of a Jolly Young Waterman’ to the tune of the Old Hundredth, which he would request them to join in singing. (Great applause.) And so the song commenced, the chairman giving out two lines at a time, in proper orthodox fashion.

It was this air that Mr. Jerry's dog, as already related, ground out of the barrel-organ, but, besides this particular melody, we do not find that Dickens mentions any other hymn-tune. The hymns referred to are rather more in number. InThe Wreck of the Golden MaryMrs. Atherfield sang Little Lucy to sleep with the Evening Hymn. There is a veiled reference to Ken's Morning Hymn inO.C.S., where Sampson Brass says:

‘Here we are, Mr. Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course—our course of duty, sir.’

Dr. Watts makes several appearances, Dickensmade the acquaintance of this noted hymnist in early youth (see p.7), and makes good use of his knowledge. InThe Cricket on the HearthMrs. Peerybingle asks John if he ever learnt ‘How doth the little’ when he went to school. ‘Not to quite know it,’ John returned. ‘I was very near it once.’ Another of the Doctor's hymns is suggested by the behaviour of the Young Tetterbys (H.M.).

The contentions between the Tetterbys' children for the milk and water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts.

The pages of history abound with instances of misguided amateurs who have amended the hymns (and tunes) of others in order to bring them into their way of thinking, and a prominent place in their ranks must be assigned to Miss Monflathers (O.C.S.), who managed to parody the good Doctor's meaning to an alarming extent and to insist that

In books, or work or healthful play16

is only applicable togenteelchildren, while all poor people's children, such as Little Nell, should spend their time.

In work, work, work. In work alway,Let my first years be passed,That I may give for ev'ry daySome good account at last,

which is far from the good Doctor's meaning.

Dr. Strong, David Copperfield's second schoolmaster, was fond of quoting this great authority on mischief, but Mr. Wickfield suggests that Dr. Watts, had he known mankind well, would also have written ‘Satan finds some mischief still for busy hands to do.’

Some years ago a question was raised inNotes and Queriesas to the identity of the ‘No. 4 Collection’ of hymns which appeared to afford consolation to Job Trotter. No answer was vouchsafed, the fact being that the title is a pure invention, and no such collection has ever existed. It is scarcely necessary to add that history is silent as to the identity of the hymn-book which Uriah Heep was reading when David Copperfield and others visited him in prison.

We are indebted to Dickens for the introduction to the literary world of Adelaide Procter, many of whose sacred verses have found their way into our hymnals. The novelist wrote an introduction to herLegends and Lyrics, in which he tells the story of how, as editor ofHousehold Words, he acceptedverses sent him from time to time by a Miss Mary Berwick, and only discovered, some months later, that his contributor was the daughter of his friend Procter, who was known under thenom de plumeof Barry Cornwall.

There seems to be some difficulty in regard to the authorship of the hymn

Hear my prayer, O Heavenly Father,Ere I lay me down to sleep;Bid Thy angels, pure and holy,Round my bed their vigil keep.

It has already been pointed out (seeChoir, February, 1912) that this hymn appeared in the Christmas number ofHousehold Wordsfor 1856, in a story entitledThe Wreck of the Golden Mary. The chief authorities on the works of Dickens claim it as his composition, and include it in his collected works. On the other hand, Miller, in hisOur Hymns(1866), states that Miss Harriet Parr informed him that the hymn, and the story ofPoor Dick, in which it occurs, were both her own. We may add that when Dr. Allon applied for permission to include it in his new hymn-book Dickens referred him to the authoress.

Dr. Julian takes this as authoritative, and has nohesitation in ascribing the hymn to Miss Parr. On the other hand, Forster records in hisLife of Dickensthat a clergyman, the Rev. R.H. Davies, had been struck by this hymn when it appeared inHousehold Words, and wrote to thank him for it. ‘I beg to thank you,’ Dickens answered (Christmas Eve, 1856), ‘for your very acceptable letter, not the less because I am myself the writer you refer to.’ Here Dickens seems to claim the authorship, but it is possible he was referring to something else in the magazine when he wrote these words, and not to the hymn.

14Dickens frequently uses the word in this sense. Tom Pinch says, ‘I shall punish the Boar's Head tremendously.’ It is also interesting to note that Dickens uses the phrase ‘I don't think’ in its modern slang meaning on at least two occasions. Tom Pinch remarks ‘I'm a nice man, I don't think, as John used to say’ (M.C.6), and Sam Weller (P.P.38) says to Mr. Winkle ‘you're a amiably-disposed young man, sir, I don't think.’ Mark Tapley uses the expression ‘a pious fraud’ (M.C.13).

15‘Pet’ (L.D.2) was a frequent visitor to the Hospital.

16From the poem onIndustry.

Thenumerous songs and vocal works referred to by Dickens in his novels and other writings furnish perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most instructive, branch of this subject. His knowledge of song and ballad literature was extraordinary, and he did not fail to make good use of it. Not only are the quotations always well chosen and to the point, but the use of them has greatly added to the interest of such characters as Swiveller, Micawber, Cuttle, and many others, all of whom are of a very musical turn of mind. These songs may be conveniently divided into three classes, the first containing the national and popular airs of the eighteenth century, of which ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Sally in our Alley’ are notable examples. Many of these are referred to in the following pages, while a full list will be found on pp.135–163.

There are numerous references to ‘Rule Britannia.’ Besides those mentioned elsewhere we havethe picture of little David Copperfield in his dismal home.

What evenings when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes as ‘Rule Britannia,’ or ‘Away with Melancholy’!

No wonder he finally went to sleep over them!

InDombey and SonOld Sol has a wonderful story of theCharming Sallybeing wrecked in the Baltic, while the crew sang ‘Rule Britannia’ as the ship went down, ‘ending with one awful scream in chorus.’ Walter gives the date of the tragedy as 1749. (The song was written in 1740.)

Captain Cuttle had a theory that ‘Rule Britannia,’ ‘which the garden angels sang about so many times over,’ embodied the outlines of the British Constitution. It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the Captain's ‘garden angels’ appear in the song as ‘guardian angels.’

Mark Tapley, when in America, entertained a grey-haired black man by whistling this tune with all his might and main. The entry of Martin Chuzzlewit caused him to stop the tune

at that point where Britons generally are supposed to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never—

In the article on ‘Wapping Workhouse’ (U.T.) Dickens introduces the first verse of the song in criticizing the workhouse system and its treatment of old people, and in theAmerican Noteshe tells us that he left Canada with ‘Rule Britannia’ sounding in his ears.

‘British Grenadiers,’ said Mr. Bucket to Mr. Bagnet, ‘there's a tune to warm an Englishman up!Couldyou give us “British Grenadiers,” my fine fellow?’ And the ‘fine fellow,’ who was none other than Bagnet junior (also known as ‘Woolwich’), promptly

fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much enlivened, beats time, and never fails to come in sharp with the burden ‘Brit Ish Gra-a-anadeers.’

Our national anthem is frequently referred to. In the description of the public dinner (S.B.S.19)—

‘God Save the Queen’ is sung by the professional gentlemen, the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as ‘perfectly electrical.’

On another occasion we are told the company, sang the national anthem with national independence, each one singing it according to his own ideas oftime and tune. This is the usual way of singing it at the present day.

In addition to those above mentioned we find references to ‘The Marseillaise’ and ‘Ça ira,’ both of which Dickens says he heard in Paris. InLittle DorritMr. Meagles says:

As to Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed.

Without disputing the decided opinion expressed by the speaker, there is no doubt that some would give the palm to ‘Ça ira,’ which the novelist refers to in one of his letters. The words of this song were adapted in 1790 to the tune of ‘Carillon National.’ This was a favourite air of Marie Antoinette, and she frequently played it on the harpsichord. After her downfall she heard it as a cry of hatred against herself—it followed her from Versailles to the capital, and she would hear it from her prison and even when going to her death.

When Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley were on their way to America, one of their fellow travellers was

an English gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession belonging to its strong-box besides the key [and who] grew eloquentupon the subject of the rights of man, and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn constantly.

In an article on this tune in theChoir(Nov., 1911) it is stated that it was composed in 1792 at Strasburg, but received its name from the fact that a band of soldiers going from Marseilles to Paris made the new melody their marching tune. A casual note about it appears to be the only musical reference inA Tale of Two Cities.

From America we have ‘Hail Columbia’ and ‘Yankee Doodle.’ InMartin Chuzzlewitwe meet the musical coach-driver who played snatches of tunes on the key bugle. A friend of his went to America, and wrote home saying he was always singing ‘Ale Columbia.’ In hisAmerican NotesDickens tells about a Cleveland newspaper which announced that America had ‘whipped England twice, and that soon they would sing “Yankee Doodle” in Hyde Park and “Hail Columbia” in the scarlet courts of Westminster.’

We then come to a group of songs dating, roughly, from 1780. This includes several popularsea songs by Charles Dibdin and others, some ballad opera airs, theIrish Melodiesand other songs by Thomas Moore, and a few sentimental ditties. Following these we have the songs of the early Victorian period, consisting of more sentimental ditties of a somewhat feebler type, with a few comic and nigger minstrel songs. The task of identifying the numerous songs referred to has been interesting, but by no means easy. No one who has not had occasion to refer to them can have any idea of the hundreds, nay, of the thousands, of song-books that were turned out from the various presses under an infinitude of titles during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There is nothing like them at the present day, and the reasons for their publication have long ceased to exist. It should be explained that the great majority of these books contained the words only, very few of them being furnished with the musical notes. Dickens has made use of considerably over a hundred different songs. In some cases the references are somewhat obscure, but their elucidation is necessary to a proper understanding of the text. An example of this occurs in Chapter IX ofMartin Chuzzlewit, where we are told the history of the variousnames given to the young red-haired boy at Mrs. Todgers' commercial boarding-house. When the Pecksniffs visited the house

he was generally known among the gentlemen as Bailey Junior, a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction perhaps to Old Bailey, and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life and has been immortalized in a ballad.

The song referred to here is ‘Unfortunate Miss Bailey,’ by George Colman, and sung by Mr. Mathews in the comic opera ofLove Laughs at Locksmiths. It tells the story of a maid who hung herself, while her persecutor took to drinking ratafia.

Dickens often refers to these old song-books, either under real or imaginary names. Captain Cuttle gives ‘Stanfell's Budget’ as the authority for one of his songs, and this was probably the song-book that formed one of the ornaments which he placed in the room he was preparing for Florence Dombey. Other common titles are the ‘Prentice's Warbler,’ which Simon Tappertit used, ‘Fairburn's Comic Songster,’ and the ‘Little Warbler,’ which is mentioned two or three times. Of the songs belonging to this second period, some are embedded in ballad operas and plays, popular enough in their day, butlong since forgotten. An example is Mr. Jingle's quotation when he tells the blushing Rachel that he is going

In hurry, post haste for a licence,In hurry, ding dong I come back,

though he omitted the last two lines:

For that you shan't need bid me twice hence,I'll be here and there in a crack.

This verse is sung by Lord Grizzle in Fielding'sTom Thumb, as arranged by Kane O'Hara.

Paul and Virginiais mentioned by Mrs. Flora Finching (L.D.) as being one of the things that ought to have been returned to Arthur Clennam when their engagement was broken off. This was a ballad opera by Reeve and Mazzinghi, and the opening number is the popular duet ‘See from ocean rising,’ concerning which there is a humorous passage in ‘The Steam Excursion’ (S.B.), where it is sung by one of the Miss Tauntons and Captain Helves. The last-named, ‘after a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming,’ began

in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. This in private circles is frequently designated a ‘bass voice.’

[MIDI][Score to See from ocean rising]See from ocean risingBright flame, the orb of day;From yon grove the varied songShall slumber from Virginia chase, chase away,Slumber from Virginia chase, chase away.

[MIDI][Score to See from ocean rising]

See from ocean risingBright flame, the orb of day;From yon grove the varied songShall slumber from Virginia chase, chase away,Slumber from Virginia chase, chase away.

Dickens is not quite correct in this description, as the part of Paul was created by Incledon, the celebrated tenor, but there are still to be found basses who insist on singing tenor when they think that part wants their assistance.

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