Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The contest between Smith and the younger Harris was carried on with great spirit; each had his friends and supporters, and the point of preference between them was hardly determined by that exquisite piece of workmanship of Smith, the organ now standing in the Temple Church, of the building thereof, the following is the history, as related by a person who was living at the time, and intimately acquainted with both Smith and Harris.

Upon the decease of Mr. Dallans, and the elder Harris, Mr. Renatus Harris, and Father Smith, became great rivals in their employment, and several trials of skill were betwixt them on several occasions; but the famous contest between these two artists was at the Temple Church, where a new organ was going to be erected, towards the latter end of King Charles II.’s time. Both made friends for that employment; but, as the Society could not agree about who should be the man, the Master of the Temple, and the Benchers, proposed they both should set up an organ on each side of the church; which, in about half a year, or three quarters of a year, was done accordingly. Dr. Blow and Mr. Purcell, who was then in his prime, showed and played Father Smith’s organ, on appointed days, to a numerous audience; and, till the other was heard, every body believed that Father Smith would certainly carry it.

Mr. Harris brought Mr. Lully, organist to Queen Catharine, a very eminent master, to touch his organ, which brought it into such vogue, that they thus continued vieing with each other near a twelvemonth.

Then Mr. Harris challenged Father Smith to make additional stops against a set time; these were the Vox Humane, the Cremona, or Violin Stop, the double Courtel, or Bass Flute, and others.

These stops, as being newly invented, gave great delight and satisfaction to a numerous audience, and were so well imitated on both sides, that it was hard to judge the advantage to either. At last it was left to my Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, who was of that house, and he put an end to the controversy, by pitching upon Father Smith’s organ; so Mr. Harris’s organ was taken away without loss of reputation, and Mr. Smith’s remains to this day.

Now began the setting up of organs in the chief parishes of the city of London, for the most part Mr. Harris had the advantage of Father Smith, making, I believe, two for his one; among them some are reckoned very eminent; viz. the organ at St. Bride’s, St. Lawrence, near Guildhall, St. Mary Axe, &c.

Notwithstanding this success of Mr. Harris, Smith was considered as an able and ingenious workman, and, in consequence of this character, he was employed to build an organ for the cathedral of St. Paul.

The organs made by him, though in respect of workmanship they are far short of those of Harris, and even of Dalian’s, are justly admired; and, for the fineness of their tone, have never yet been equalled.

Harris’s organ was afterwards purchased for the cathedral of Christ Church, at Dublin, and set up there; but, some years back, Mr. Byfield was sent for, from England, to repair it, which he objected to, and prevailed on the Chapter to have a new one, made by himself, he allowing for the old one in exchange. When he had got it, he would have treated with the parishioners of Lynn, in Norfolk, for the sale of it; but they, disdaining the offer of a second-hand instrument, refused to purchase it, and employed Snetzlor to build them a new one, for which they paid him seven hundred pounds. Byfield dying, his widow sold Harris’s organ to the parish of Wolverhampton for five hundred pounds, and there it remains at this day (i. e. 1778.) One of two eminent masters, then living, were requested by the churchwardens of Wolverhampton to give their opinions of this instrument, who declared it to be the best modern organ he had ever touched.

_Sir John Hawkins’s Memoirs._

QUEEN MARY AND MR. PURCELL.

The famous old ballad, “_Cold and raw_,” was greatly admired by Queen Mary, consort of King William; and she once affronted Mr. Purcell, by requesting to have it sung to her, he being present. The story is as follows: The Queen, having a mind, one afternoon, to be entertained with music, sent to Mr. Gostling, then one of the Chapel, and afterwards subdean of St. Paul’s; to Mr. Henry Purcell, and Mrs. Arabella Hunt, who had a very fine voice, and an admirable hand on the lute, with a request to attend her. Mr. Gostling and Mrs. Hunt sung several compositions of Purcell, who accompanied them on the harpsichord. At length the queen, beginning to grow tired, asked Mrs. Hunt, if she could not sing the old Scotch ballad, “Cold and raw?” Mrs. Hunt answered yes, and sung it to her lute. Purcell was all the while sitting at the harpsichord unemployed, and not a little nettled at the queen’s preference of a vulgar ballad to his music; but, seeing her majesty delighted with this tune, he determined that she should hear it upon another occasion, and accordingly, in the next birth-day song, viz. that for the year 1692, he composed an air to the words, “_May her bright example chace vice in troops out of the land_,” the bass whereof is the tune to Cold and Raw. It is printed in the Orpheus Britannicus, and is note for note the same with the Scotch tune.

THE HIGHLAND CHARGING TUNE.

In one of the late battles in Calabria, a bagpiper of the 78th regiment, when the light infantry charged the French, posted himself on their right, and remained in his solitary situation during the whole of the battle, encouraging the men with a famous Highland charging tune; and actually, upon the retreat and complete rout of the French, changed it to another, equally celebrated in Scotland upon the retreat of and victory over an enemy. His next hand neighbour guarded him so well, that he escaped unhurt. This was the spirit of the “Last Minstrel,” who infused courage among his countrymen, by possessing it in so animated a degree, and in so venerable a character.

_Curiosities of Literature._

EFFECTS OF FOREIGN MUSIC ON DIFFERENT ANIMALS.

Sir William Jones, in his curious Dissertation on the musical Modes of the Hindus, relates the following story.

“After food, when the operations of digestion and absorption give so much employment to the vessels, that a temporary state of mental repose must be found, especially in hot climates, essential to health, it seems reasonable to believe that a few agreeable airs, either heard or played without effort, must have all the good effects of sleep, and none of its disadvantages: _putting the soul in tune_, as Milton says, for any subsequent exertion; an experiment often made by myself. I have been assured by a credible eye-witness, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, Sirajuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them, to display his archery. A learned native told me, that he had frequently seen the most venomous and malignant snakes leave their holes upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Persian declared he had, more than once, been present, when a celebrated lutanist, surnamed Bulbul, (i. e. the nightingale,) was playing to a large company, in a grove near Schiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician, sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument, and, at length, dropping on the ground, in a kind of ecstacy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change of the mode.”

EFFECT OF MUSIC ON LIZARDS.

A modern traveller assures us, that he has repeatedly observed, in the island of Madeira, that the lizards are attracted by the notes of music, and that he has assembled a number of them by the powers of his instrument. He tells us also, that when the negroes catch them, for food, they accompany the chase, by whistling some tune, which has always the effect of drawing great numbers towards them.

Stedman, in his expedition to Surinam, describes certain sibyls among the negroes, who, among several singular practices, can charm or conjure down from the tree certain serpents, who will wreath about the arms, neck, and breast of the pretended sorceress, listening to her voice. The sacred writers speak of the charming of adders and serpents; and nothing, says he, is more notorious than that the eastern Indians will rid the houses of the most venomous snakes, by charming them with the sound of a flute, which calls them out of their holes.

MUSICAL ANECDOTE FROM MARVILLE.

Marville has given us the following anecdote. He says, “that doubting the truth of those who say it is natural for us to love music, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves are touched with it, being one day in the country, I enquired into the truth; and, while a man was playing on the trump-marine, made my observations on a cat, a dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was leaning.

“I did not perceive that the cat was the least affected, and I even judged, by her air, that she would have given all the instruments in the world for a mouse, sleeping in the sun all the time. The horse stopped short, from time to time, before the window, raising his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass. The dog continued for above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking stedfastly at the player. The ass did not discover the least indication of his being touched, eating his thistles peaceably. The hind lifted up her large wide ears, and seemed very attentive. The cows slept a little, and, after gazing, as though they had been acquainted with us, went forward. Some little birds, who were in an aviary, and others on the trees and bushes, almost tore their little throats with singing: but the cock, who minded only his hens, and the hens who were solely employed in scraping a neighbouring dunghill, did not show, in any manner, that they took the least pleasure in hearing the trump-marine.”

ACCOUNT OF THE RECITATION OF THE BOATMEN OF VENICE.

It is well known, observes a celebrated literary character that, in Venice, the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and are wont to sing them in their own melody. But this talent seems at present on the decline:—at least, after taking some pains, I could find no more than two persons who delivered to me, in this way, a passage from Tasso.

There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of a medium between the canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by which one syllable is detained and embellished.

I entered a gondola by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards, and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song: when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invariably returned; but, according to the subject matter of the strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the whole strophe, as the object of the poem altered.

On the whole, however, their sounds were hoarse and screaming: they seemed in the manner of all rude, uncivilised men, to make the excellency of their singing in the force of their voice: one seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs, and so far from receiving delight from this scene, (shut up as I was in the box of the gondola) I found myself in a very unpleasant situation.

My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this singing was very delightful, when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got out, upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing against one another, and I kept walking up and down between them both, so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood still and hearkened to the one and to the other.

Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as it were shrieking sound met the ear from far, and called forth the attention: the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off, answering him, in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas, that moved like spirits, hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of the scene, and, amidst all these circumstances, it was easy to confess the character of this wonderful harmony.

It suits perfectly well with an idle, solitary mariner, lying at length in his vessel, at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company, or for a fare, the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over the tranquil mirror, and, as all is still around, he is, as it were, in a solitude, in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling of carriages, no noise of foot passengers: a silent gondola glides now and then by him, of which the splashing of the oars are scarcely to be heard.

At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody and verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard, as he had heard the other. By a tacit convention, they alternate, verse for verse; though the song should last the whole night through, they entertain themselves without fatigue; the hearers, who are passing between the two, take part in the amusement.

This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal, in its sound, and, at times, it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said, quite unexpectedly:—“_e singolare come quel canto intenersce, e molto più quando lo cantano meglio_.”

I was told that the women of Libo, the long row of islands that divides the Adriatic from the Lagouns, particularly the women of the extreme districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of Tasso to these and similar tunes.

They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit along the shore, in the evenings, and vociferate these songs, and continue to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the responses of her own husband at a distance.

How much more delightful and more appropriate does this song show itself here, than the call of a solitary person, uttered far and wide, till another equally disposed shall hear and answer him! It is the expression of a vehement and hearty longing, which yet is every moment nearer to the happiness of satisfaction.

_Curiosities of Literature._

THE END.

INDEX.

A.

AMURATH, Sultan of the East, saves the lives of 30,000 persons,
by music, 23.

Animals in the West of England, stimulated by music, 37.

Abell, Mr. anecdote of, 62.

Arne, Dr. ditto, 69.

Archangelo Corelli, ditto, 87.

B.

Bull, extraordinary effects of music on one, 32.

Brown, Mr. musical anecdote related by, 77.

Battle, musical one, 99.

Boatmen of Venice, account of their recitation, 169.