CHAPTER IV.

TOWN OR COUNTRY.

“A letter with the London post mark, mamma,” said Eveline, “and not from Mark.”

“I hope Mark is well,” said Mrs. Fenner, taking the letter with some trepidation. “It is Mr. Echlin’s writing. What a long letter!”

As Mrs. Fenner’s eyes ran along the lines traced by the firm hand of her cousin, her colour rose, a smile broke on her lips, and as she laid down the letter the tears stood in her eyes.

“Nothing is wrong with Mark, mamma?” said Eveline, inquiringly.

“Nothing, dear; quite the contrary. But you had better read the letter; it concerns you quite as much as me.” And Mrs. Fenner held the letter to her daughter.

“Oh, mamma, how nice of him!” exclaimed Eveline, with sparkling eyes. “I knew he must love Mark. How could he help it? But to think of his wanting us to go and live in London with him and Mark—to make his house like home, he says! What will you do, mother? What will you do?”

“What do you say, Eveline? What do you wish?”

“I? Of course I like to do what you like.”

“It is very kind of Miles.”

“I should think it was. And he puts it so prettily; as if all the favour were on our side.”

“But, dear, I don’t know how you would like to live in a great city, you who have always been used to open air and country life; Manchester-square has no Sunbridge Woods within reach.”

“But it has Mark, mother; and Mark is better than Sunbridge Woods—better than Blyfield Park. Why, mother, you know that we’d both of us rather be with him where he is, than in the Gardens of the Hesperides! I suppose we couldn’t keep the cottage, and just run down to it now and then, could we?”

“I don’t think we ought to propose such an arrangement; it would be a half-hearted acceptance of my cousin’s offer; we must either go or stay. But I will take the letter up to the rectory; I must know what your aunt and uncle think of it. Don’t say anything to Elga, just for a little.”

“As you think best, mother,” said Eveline, and went out, as one in a dream, to perform her morning household duties. No sooner did she appear in the yard with her apron full of grain, than the fowls came running, flying, flustering to her feet; the pigeons, who were on the watch on the low roof of the tool-house, spread their blue wings and dropped down among them; while Eveline’s body-guardsman, the snow-white fox-terrier, Boz, stood gravely on the watch to preserve order, himself the very personification of cleanliness and decorum—his bushy tail curling over his back, every hair of his coat erect and in its proper place, glancing with his brown eyes from his mistress to her noisy pensioners, and keeping his little black nose well raised, with a slight suggestion of superiority.

“Ah, Boz,” said Eveline, when the edge was a little taken off the appetite of her feathered guests, “you little think what is hanging over you! I wonder how you’ll like it! Who will keep old Bulbo in order, if you go away, old dog?”

Old Bulbo was a rather aggressive Poland cock, who had been handsome, but whose digestion had become impaired, his top-knot floppy, and his tail-feathers ragged, while he was easily exasperated at the frivolous impertinence of the younger generations, who stole choice morsels under his very bill, and generally managed to escape his vengeance, when he, like an old bully as he was, would turn to vent his spite on the faithful partner of his roost; on which occasions Boz started into activity, and compelled the old tyrant to keep the peace.

Boz wagged his tail in answer to his mistress’s tone rather than to her words, and waited attentively while she gathered the pretty brown or white eggs, swept the hen-house, making it sweet and fresh with sprinkled lime, and ended by filling the large brown pan with clear water which the fowls immediately muddied.

The poultry-yard settled, Boz conducted his mistress to the vegetable garden, where Eveline gathered a basket of peas for dinner, some currants and raspberries for dessert, quietly wondering who would gather the fruit from those bushes next year. As she stood among the raspberry bushes her mother came out and went down the garden to the rectory gate. A sharp pain shot through Eveline’s heart.

“What will Uncle James say and Aunt Elgitha? Will they persuade mother not to go? I’m sure Uncle James will miss us, and poor Githa!” and the ready tears welled into Eveline’s eyes. “But Mark—to live with Mark, to see him every day—to live in London, to hear beautiful music, to see beautiful pictures, to go to Westminster Abbey, to the Temple, to St. Paul’s!”

Eveline sat down among the roses, fairly dazed with the thick-coming thoughts, while the bees hummed, the grasshoppers chirped, and the roses slowly swayed in the west wind that came to them charged with the fragrance of the mignonette.

The earth was so fair, the sky so blue, the wind so sweet, what need was there to think of anything but the beauty and the colour and the perfume?

Just then a chill wind blew from the north, the leaves shivered, the murmur of the grasshoppers died away under the grass as over the church a huge black cloud came sweeping, while another, jagged and angry, met it from the south, and there came a sound of rolling thunder. Eveline looked in wonder from her bower, the storm had burst so suddenly. Was it an answer to her thought, a warning not to trust in the perishable, not to make pleasure the law of life, but to aim at the imperishable, the eternal? It shot through Eveline’s mind that she might at least take such teaching from it, that if she could grasp the blessings of family love and sisterhood it would be worse than folly to magnify the blessings she must give up for them; but she was glad that the burden of the choice did not lie with her, and making her way into the house, she occupied herself in her usual studies.

Mrs. Fenner meanwhile had laid Miles Echlin’s letter before the rector and his wife, not without certain misgivings as to how the contents would strike them. Lady Elgitha at once saw the importance of the question, and quickly set herself to consider how it might affect her own household. She was personally attached to Margaret, as far at least as she could be attached to anyone unconnected with the great house of Manners, and she had always felt that it was respectable to have her husband’s widowed sister living, as it were, under the shelter of the rectory, especially as she was the widow of a man who must have been a general and a K.C.B. at the very least, if he had lived. Mark, too, had by a certain natural joyousness of temper unconsciously maintained himself in her good graces, but Eveline was already rather a difficulty to Lady Elgitha. She was decidedly so much prettier than Elgitha that it had sometimes struck the rector’s wife of late that it was unfortunate to have to introduce as her niece a girl who must be more attractive than her own daughter; it would be well at least that Eveline should be withdrawn before Elgitha came out. These thoughts shot through Lady Elgitha’s brain while the rector was taking in the idea that a great piece of good fortune had befallen his sister, which must entail nothing but loss and bereavement on him.

“We shall miss you, Margaret,” he said, while the tears rose to his eyes.

“We shall miss each other, James,” replied his sister, softly. “But what do you and Elgitha think? It is very kind of Miles, and the prettiest compliment he could have paid dear Mark; but we need not accept it, you know, if you think——”

“Of course you must accept it, Margaret,” said Lady Elgitha, and there was a touch of east wind in her voice which made the brother and sister shrink and feel ashamed; “it would be flying in the face of Providence not to accept such an offer. What is to become of Eveline if you die? You can’t depend even on a pretty girl’s marrying nowadays, if she has no fortune.”

“Yes, I think it would certainly be good for Eveline, and it would be so nice for Mark. I am sure Miles deserves all we can do for him.”

“Of course; and when you’re tired of London, you can always run down here, and I daresay Eveline will be glad to have Elgitha up for a week or two in the season. It would be a good opportunity for her to have some lessons. I’m sure, Margaret, you have much to be thankful for—Mark so well provided for, and such an opening for you and Eveline.”

And Lady Elgitha sighed, for she caught sight of her son coming up the path with his hat at the back of his head and his hands in the pocket of his loose shooting-coat, looking the picture of idleness.

The poor rector had much ado to congratulate his sister. Fortunately, he had a way of looking at events as they affected other people rather than himself; so that the pleasure he felt in the honour done to his sister’s son, and in the advantages which would accrue to her and her daughter, occupied him more than the loss and desolation to himself.

When Elgitha heard the news, she was in blank despair. Rosenhurst would be unendurable without Aunt Margaret and Eveline. No one else should live in the cottage. She would go to school; she would be trained for a nurse, and go to a hospital; she must do something, or she should die of dulness, with only father and mother, and Gilbert always loafing about.

But the end of it was that Margaret wrote to Mr. Echlin, thanking him, and promising to spend the winter in Manchester-square, that they might see how they liked each other, and to come at the beginning of October. Mr. Echlin replied that he was perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, but begged as a favour that they would say nothing about the matter to Mark.

This was a hard condition to keep when Mark came down for his summer holiday, and led to some amusing complications. Mark was full of the goodness and generosity of his cousin. He did not believe he had a single fault; and though he had had great sorrows, he was so cheerful that you forgot he was old. “I suppose cheerfulness runs in the family,” said the lad, with a loving look at his mother. “What paragons grandmamma and grandpapa must have been!”

“There is much to be thankful for in the inheritance of a cheerful temper, no doubt,” said his mother; “and I think all the Echlins I have known have been disposed to look on the bright side of things.”

“You yourself, mother,” said Eveline, admiringly, “who have had trouble enough to break a woman’s heart, Aunt Elgitha says.”

“But it seemed God’s own hand, Eva,” replied Mrs. Fenner, softly; “and who was I that I should murmur? Did He not know best?”

“And very narrow means, mother.”

“And two good children, who never fretted for what they could not have. Your cousin Miles has had more grievous sorrow than I; he has lost his wife and lost his son, who, everyone says, was all a father could wish, and he has no child left him.”

“Do you know, mother,” said Mark, very confidentially, “I have a notion that he has found someone whom he thinks of bringing home? You have no notion how the house is being brisked up. He has said nothing to me. Of course, I could not expect to be always in such comfortable quarters.”

“Of course not, my dear. And you would be sorry to have to leave Manchester-square?”

“Naturally. Why, I am lodged like a prince. I suppose Mr. Echlin must be nearly sixty; but many men of fifty look older. There is no reason why he shouldn’t—is there, mother?”

“Shouldn’t what, Mark?”

“Marry again, mother. Of course second marriages are not like first marriages; but when a man has a big house, and is all alone. He hasn’t said a word to me; but the best bedroom is to be done up—for he asked me to help him choose the paper—and one of the drawing-rooms, Mrs. Cotton said, is to be refurnished as a morning room.”

“That looks suspicious, doesn’t it, mother?” said Eveline, with saucy gravity.

“I hope,” said Mark, following out the train of his own thoughts, “it will not be too young a lady. It doesn’t look nice to see a man with a bald head with a girl who might be his daughter for a wife.”

“It would be a pity,” assented Mrs. Fenner. “I wonder why men always consider themselves so young when they marry. I remember John Brattlebury, a cousin of your father’s, as nice a man as ever lived, to whom it never occurred to marry until he was well past forty. Your father innocently suggested to him the name of a lady of about five-and-thirty, who we knew liked him, and to whom the position he was able to offer her would have been a decided gain. You’d hardly believe it, but he was almost offended, went down into Cumberland, and came home with a wife of eighteen, who knew no more of his tastes and occupations than he of hers.”

“But, mother,” said Eveline, “what was the girl thinking of?”

“Of getting a change, my dear—being mistress in a house instead of number two or three in a string of daughters. Time is apt to seem long at eighteen, and a middle-aged bachelor, when he comes to woo, has many advantages. If she cannot admire the brightness of his eyes or the elegance of his figure, she may esteem him for his experience and intelligence, and diamonds and knicknacks are powerful persuasors to some natures.”

“And really, mamma, if you think of it, it may not be so bad, after all. Shakespeare says—

‘Let still woman take An elder than herself, so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband’s heart.’

Don’t you remember? we read it last night.”

“I remember that Shakespeare makes Duke Orsino say so. Perhaps, as Shakespeare had married a woman older than himself, he might set value on the opposite qualification; but it is not fair to make him answerable for the opinions of his characters. But now, Eva, you must go and dress, or Aunt Elgitha will not be able to start her tennis.”

And so the pleasant August days went by, and Mark visited his old friends, the farmers, enjoying the gathering-in of the harvest, the golden lights of the sun, the heavy whispering of the trees, and all the harmonies of country life, a thousand times the more for the contrast with the city life he had been leading for the last nine months. There was but one thing in which he was disappointed—he wanted to spend a large part of his handsome salary in the decoration of his mother’s cottage; but both his mother and Eveline were unaccountably indifferent to it, and Mrs. Fenner at last put him past the idea by saying that if there should be changes in Manchester-square, it might be desirable, for Eveline’s sake, that she should go to town for a few months, and then he could come and stay with them.

So Mark went back to town refreshed and happy. He was too much engrossed with his work to note all that was being done at Manchester-square, and too modest to ask questions; but the conviction of impending change grew on him.

So September passed, and October, with its bracing days and shortened evenings, was come. It was already the fifth, and Mark, after a rather hasty breakfast, was about to start for town, when Mr. Echlin said—

“Mark, you’ll be sure to be home in time to dress for dinner. I expect some friends—ladies.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Mark, and went his way, thinking that now it was coming, and wondering that he had not heard from his mother for nearly a week.

Business, which had been slack in August and September, was very brisk again. Mark’s work was increasing in interest and importance; he had several important proofs to read and a long journey to take in the afternoon. It was already a quarter to six as he let himself in at Manchester-square. He glanced into the dining-room; all looked bright and cosy, and a crisp fire sent out a rosy, joyous, frolicsome radiance, that was very pleasant to see. The table was laid for four. Mark was hungry enough to regard even the dinner rolls with satisfaction, and to eye the mats with a vague wonder as to what dishes were to be set on them—a warm odour of roasting meat rose from the culinary region.

“Is Mr. Echlin in, Martin?” he inquired of the butler, who was putting a finishing touch to his table.

“Yes, sir, dinner at six sharp. The ladies are dressing.”

“Oh, indeed; they have come then?”

“Yes, sir, we druv to meet ’em at four o’clock; the train was five minutes late.”

“Hullo! Mark, only just in,” called Mr. Echlin over the banisters. “Make haste, lad, we’re as hungry as hunters.” And Mark ran up three stairs at a time and plunged into the work of the toilette, too busy to wonder who the ladies might be.

The clock struck six as he left his room. As he ran downstairs the unwonted sound of music struck his ear; someone was playing a _Lied ohne Worte_, one that Eveline often played in the twilight at home. Mark was glad that one of the ladies played, and played softly, but Martin’s inexorable gong began to boom, and he must go in.

Miles Echlin had never used the drawing-room, and when Mark opened the door, and the great chandeliers were reflected from mirror to mirror, he started back dazzled. Two ladies rose at his entrance and came towards him; both called him by his name. What did it mean? Were they in very truth his own mother and sister, the ladies dearest in the world to his loyal heart?

The wonder of it almost took away his breath, and he gave a great gasp as he uttered their names.

“Mother! Eveline!”

“Forgive me, Mark,” said Mr. Echlin, taking his hand, “it was selfish of me to take you so by surprise, I ought to have told you.”

“Oh, sir, are they come to stay?” asked Mark, looking from one to the other, still incredulous.

“To stay, to live with us if we can make the old house homelike enough for them, or rather if they will make it homelike for me and my adopted son.”

“Oh, sir, how good you are to me.”

“And are you not good to me? Ever since you came to me, have you not thought, worked, and cared for me? My own dear son was taken from me, he who must ever be first in my heart, but do not think that I cannot love and honour loyalty and worth, that I cannot thank God for cheering me with such a friend as you! But there is old Martin pounding away at his gong! You all know what I would say. Come, Margaret, Mark will bring his sister.”

He led Mrs. Fenner down with old-fashioned courtesy, and placed her in the seat which his wife had once filled, then motioned to Eveline to sit at his right while Mark took his customary seat on his left. There were many larger parties in the square that night, but not one where there were more grateful hearts, and of the silent covenant made that night no one of the four ever repented.

With the presence of those good women, all that was happy and homelike came back to the big house. Music and soft laughter filled its chambers—Mr. Echlin loved to have it so. The portraits of his wife and of his son hang where they used to hang, and some beautiful landscapes now adorn the walls, and in Mrs. Echlin’s pretty sitting-room the grave, sweet face of Michael Fenner looks down on the children to whom he bequeathed the best possession, THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.

[THE END.]

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF MUSICAL FORMS.

SKETCH III.—CANTATAS AND CHURCH MUSIC.

BY MYLES B. FOSTER, Organist of the Foundling Hospital.

CANTATA.

A form belonging equally to sacred and secular music, viz., the cantata, in all probability first emanated from desire to possess in chamber music the recitative, invented by Peri and others, and supposed by themselves and their admirers to be a revival of Greek art. You will best judge of the primitive nature of the earliest cantatas, and understand the difference between them and the compositions which have since appeared under the same title, when I tell you that they were short dramatic stories, declaimed or recited by one voice to the accompaniment of a single instrument. In the seventeenth century this simple form was extended, by the insertion, at various intervals, of an air, the repetition of which gave the cantata the appearance of a rondo. The Italian school of that period, already mentioned in connection with the opera, did much to perfect this style of composition. Foremost amongst these masters stands Carissimi, who is credited with first adapting the cantata to church purposes. Amongst his secular cantatas there is one written to commemorate the death of Mary Queen of Scots. About the same time, Marcello, Cesti, and Lotti wrote in this form, and Alessandro Scarlatti contributed very many specimens, in which the accompaniments were elaborate and difficult. Some of Marcello’s are published for soprano and contralto, with clavecin accompaniment.

In the early part of the next century Domenico Scarlatti, the son of the Alessandro above named, considerably extended the form by making use of various movements in the one work. Pergolesi (1710-36) also wrote several cantatas, introducing important developments. A well-known one of his was _Orfeo ed Euridice_, written shortly before his death. Handel wrote several for the single voice, either with clavier or orchestral accompaniment, mostly for oboes and stringed instruments. In the life of Handel, published soon after his death (in 1760), the number is put down as two hundred; but this total will include his Church cantatas, a much more advanced form of composition, although composed when he was quite a young man.

The modern name for the primitive form of cantata is undoubtedly “Concert aria,” or “Scena,” into which it has merged. Under the latter titles we have splendid examples by Mozart, such as “Misero, O sogno?” “Bella mia fiamma,” “Misera dove son!” and “Non temer,” and single specimens by Beethoven, “Ah, perfido,” and by Mendelssohn, “Infelice.” The most important and valuable Church cantatas are those composed by John Sebastian Bach, consisting of five sets for every Sunday and holy day in the year, besides many single ones, such as “God’s time is the best,” and a sort of requiem ode for the Electress of Saxony. These Church cantatas are for four voices and full orchestra, and have from four to seven various movements. Bach wrote many secular cantatas as well, two of them being comic ones. His works abound in contrapuntal skill, and contain great beauties.

It remains to be said that in our times the word cantata is used as a title to choral works which, if sacred and written in oratorio style, are too short for that title or have no _dramatis personæ_; or, if secular, such as lyric dramas set to music, are not intended to be acted. Sir Sterndale Bennett’s _May Queen_ is a good specimen of the latter, which may be said to bear the same relationship to opera that the sacred cantata of the present day does to oratorio.

MOTETT AND ANTHEM.

Winterfeld, a German writer on musical matters, derives the word motett from “mot,” the French for “a word,” referring to the verse of Holy Scripture which constitutes a motett; whilst other learned men connect it with the Latin verb “movere,” indicative of the livelier motion and the briskness it possesses, when compared with the Cantus Fermus; and there is yet a third derivation from “mutare,” to change—a reference to the changing sentiments and emotional characteristics of these musical settings, a noticeable feature in such stiff and formal times.

At one time the motett was made up of a theme and its treatment in different variations, after the manner of the Spanish “moto” in poetry. Motetts were also set to profane words in the early periods of their history, and they were forbidden to be used in church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Dr. Stainer, in his “Dictionary of Musical Terms,” mentions the term “motett” as being synonymous with “pulpitre” in the fifteenth century, but for the last three hundred years the term has meant a piece of sacred music adapted to Latin words, and to be sung at high mass in the Roman Catholic Church, either instead of or as an addition to the offertory, which was to be set to the music of the plainsong. Motetts by Philip of Vitrisco date back as far as the year 1300. At the commencement of that century the motett became a much more living form, when represented by such composers as our English John Dunstable, the Flemish Du Fay, and others. Following these composers came the Netherlanders of Okenheim’s school, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and they more definitely separated their motetts from the style of the masses in vogue.

In the latter there is a painful striving apparent, consequent on the feeling, almost of duty, that severe contrapuntal exhibitions must be displayed, whereas in the former there is breadth of style and general fitness of things, untrammelled by this artificiality.

In the sixteenth century the Flemish writers, headed by Josquin des Prés, made great moves onward, and gained the leading position in musical Europe by earnest work and pure and noble endeavours. They chose passages from the Gospels and the Book of Canticles for their motetts, and imbued them with characteristic individuality. At the same period the Lamentations of Jeremiah were largely drawn upon for subjects. In this and the fifteenth centuries we find a large collection of funeral motetts, named nœniæ, very reverent and beautiful. One by Josquin des Prés, founded on plain chant, and written in memory of his friend Okenheim (who was also his master), is very fine.

Petrucci, the father of type music printing, gave most of the earliest nœniæ to the world, many of which may be seen in the British Museum. In the middle of the sixteenth century motetts were, perhaps, influenced for good by the wonderful progress of the madrigal, but each part was written with a different text, and this confusion became an abuse. However, towards the latter part of the century that bright genius, Palestrina, proved himself to be as great a writer of motetts as he was of masses. He composed over three hundred to our knowledge, and in all probability there are more than that which have been lost. Cotemporary with this great light we find, in Italy, Morales, Anesio, Luca Marenzio, and, above all, Vittoria, who was almost as great a motett composer as Palestrina himself; in the Netherlands, Orlando di Lasso; in Venice, Willaert, and, later, Croce and the two Gabrielis.

Our English writers, Tallis and Byrd, whom we shall refer to again immediately, wrote as fine motetts as any produced by the foreign schools, under the title, “Cantiones Sacræ.” Dr. Tye, Dr. Fairfax, and others also added specimens to the English list. These motetts, as we shall see, became (after the Reformation) full anthems, which were in musical form motetts, but were set to English words. In some cases the English words are translations from the Latin. It is curious to find that Orlando Gibbons, in the seventeenth century, writing anthems for the church, christened his secular part-music “Madrigals and Motets,” thereby reverting to the old use of the term in connection with secular words only.

In the seventeenth century the motett still flourished in the Roman Church, but not for long, according to its old form. Mr. Rockstro attributes the downfall of the old motett to the invention, by Monteverde, of dominant unprepared dissonances, which “sapped the foundation of the Polyphonic School.”

Thus, after 1660 the motett was a composition in modern tonality and with orchestral accompaniments. Amongst composers in this style we find Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Durante, and others, followed later on by Keiser in Germany and Sebastian Bach, and then Graun, Hasse, and Hiller. Handel wrote motetts in his earlier years. In modern times, as I have had reason to point out to you in other forms, titles are appended to works which are, to say the least, inappropriate, and the only claim these have to the name motett is that they were originally intended to be sung at High Mass. Such are the “Insanæ et vanæ curæ” of Haydn, “Splendente te Deus” of Mozart, and the “O Salutaris” of Cherubini. The term “motetus,” given in early times to the medius or middle voice part, is probably in no way connected with the derivation of the word motett.

The motett form appears in Church music of Queen Elizabeth’s time, and although the anthem was gradually substituted, some of the earliest anthems after the Reformation were in motett style, especially those of Tallis and Byrd.

About the derivation of “anthem” there is as much dispute as there is over the word “motett.” Some consider it to be derived from “ant-hymn,” a kind of antiphony, though the very ancient custom of choir responding to choir, or choir to priest, has entirely disappeared in the modern form of anthem. This responsive or antiphonal singing may, in a highly-developed form, yet become the anthem of the future, at any rate in churches and cathedrals where the voices at disposal are good and in large numbers. By some writers “anthem” is derived from ανατιθημι, to set up (as an offering), and by some from ανθημα, a flower, the anthem being considered the flower of the service. It is regrettable to find that the idea of attending service for the sake of the anthem alone is not yet extinct.

The anthem is thoroughly English; it supplied the attraction to our Reformed Church, which the church cantatas and passion music did for the Lutheran Church. Nearly all our eminent musicians have written numbers of them, many examples containing the finest of English composition. From early in the sixteenth century the anthem was permitted as a part of Divine service, but it is not until the revision of the Prayer Book in 1662 that we find the rubric, “In choirs and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem,” which retains its place to this day.

The first writers of note were Dr. Christopher Tye, who appears as a verse-writer also, having translated the Acts of the Apostles “into Englyshe meter”; Thomas Tallis, to whom our Church owes so much; and William Byrd, joint organist with Tallis of the Chapels Royal. By this period, that is, near the end of the sixteenth century, Church music was beginning to free itself from the fetters of vague tonality and old modes, and was gradually being clothed in clear and expressive harmonies, and this improvement becomes most marked in the works of our “English Palestrina,” as Orlando Gibbons has been appropriately named. He was born in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but most of his grand Church compositions date from the commencement of the next century and the reign of James I. Though some of his anthems are “verse” and have solos in them, we may well classify this early period as that of the “full anthem.” Viols were used as accompaniments to the verse parts, and the organ was only added for the full choruses. I must remind you that the organ was a very different affair to our modern instrument. It had one advantage in its smallness, viz., that it could be carried about, being known as the _portative_ organ, as opposed to the fixed or _positive_, and could therefore be placed close to wherever the singers were, to support their voices.

Passing to the latter half of the seventeenth century, we have come through the strongest period of the history of English music. The great madrigal school has flourished for nearly a century, and now we find Pelham Humphrey or Humfrey, born 1647, studying in Paris under Lulli, and under his influence helping to create a new era in anthem composition. He died very young. Then there was Michael Wise, and Dr. John Blow, private musician to King James II.; Dr. William Croft, his pupil, whose anthems are so grand and solemn, and to whom, we may mention in passing, we owe the introduction of music engraving on pewter plates. We must also name Jeremiah Clarke, another pupil of Blow’s, and Weldon. Anthems by all these men are still sung in our churches.

Towering above them all stands Henry Purcell, whose earnest, devotional Church music puts to shame much of the frivolous composition which is nowadays devoted to that high purpose. In this age which follows the period of the early “full anthem” writers, we have the “solo” and “verse” anthem brought to the front. Purcell’s knowledge of the singer’s requirements and his gift of beautiful melody enabled him to perfect the solo anthem.

Instrumental accompaniments became more important at the hands of these composers, and at the end of the seventeenth century the organ was becoming a more perfect instrument, through the workmanship of Father Schmidt and Renatus Harris, and others.

The anthems written by Handel, such as the Chandos Anthems, were scored for larger orchestras, and were more like a combination of the German church cantata and motett than the anthem strictly so called. But this increase in the size of the church orchestra led to a full band in Attwood’s Anthem for the Coronation of George IV., who, as Prince of Wales, had been his warm-hearted patron.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century we have a few good anthem-writers, such as Dr. Greene, who wrote over forty anthems; Dr. Boyce, his articled pupil, whose “Cathedral Music” is a most valuable collection of church compositions. There were also Jonathan Battishill, Dr. William Hayes, his son Dr. Philip Hayes, the two Walmisleys, and Attwood. Dr. T. F. Walmisley only died in 1866, and therefore some of these compositions almost belong to our own times.

This fragmentary sketch brings us to the present form of anthem; but before we speak of this we must mention in passing the masterly double psalms and anthems by Mendelssohn, several of them being composed to English words.

The country that owns such anthem-writers as Dr. S. S. Wesley, Sir John Goss, Sir G. Elvey, Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Stainer, and Rev. Sir F. Gore Ouseley has just reason to be proud. Many other names could be added to this list, and the outlook seems to be most hopeful.

We are bound to notice an excrescence, going by the name of anthem, which has been largely introduced into our cathedral services. We allude to those arrangements of portions of masses, etc., coupled to words totally different in sentiment to those for which the music was originally composed, and which are strung together, like so many beads on a string, as Dr. Monk aptly says (in Sir George Grove’s Dictionary), “for the sake of pretty phrases or showy passages.”

Such adaptations would almost point to a scarceness of the genuine anthem; and yet how opposite to this is the fact, and how few of the really fine anthems of the best period of our great English school receive the amount of hearing to which they are justly entitled! To verify this, you have but to peruse Novello’s Catalogue of Sacred Music with English words.

MASS. CATHEDRAL SERVICE.

The mass, or missa (“missa est,” the congregation is dismissed), has been used, in part, at any rate, from the very earliest times, and has been sung to most impressive and solemn music. St. Ambrose and St. Gregory appear as the earliest compilators of the mass music. When counterpoint was invented, Church composers clothed the early plain-song tunes with its artistic embroideries, and polyphonic masses arose, gradually brought by the great schools of the sixteenth century to such a pitch of excellence that they have never since been equalled. The mass then consisted, as it does now, of six movements, viz., the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The masses were named after the plain-song melody upon which they were developed; but occasionally the melody used was a profane one, so that a mass would be named after its secular melody, as, for instance, “L’homme armée,” an old French lovesong! and the masses founded upon an original theme were rare, and known as “Missa _sine nomine_.” The tenor Du Fay, already named in connection with the motett, wrote many of a very devotional but unmelodious character. At the end of the fifteenth century Josquin des Prés, also mentioned previously, wrote many masses, in which, strange to say, a great want of reverence is most evident from time to time. A purer style will be found later on in the masses of Goudimel, Morales, and notably in those of Festa. But about this period the abuse spoken of in treating of the motett had crept into the mass, and the device was to give different sets of words to each singer! Even Morales is guilty of this, mixing up, as he does, the text of the Liturgy and an Ave Maria. Devotional feeling was sacrificed to a desire to puzzle, and masses were esteemed according to the difficulty of the solution of the canons employed in them.

At the Council of Trent (1562) these abuses were condemned, and polyphonic music would have been forbidden a place in the Church, but for one great, earnest man, and that man was Palestrina. His now celebrated “Missa Papæ Marcelli” decided the fate and fixed the style of Church music. In it he demonstrated that these intricacies and learned forms might be well and devotionally used as a means to the highest end, but not as a substitute for that great end itself. He wrote nearly a hundred masses, and greatly influenced the future of Church music.

William Byrd wrote a mass for five voices of great interest. Vittoria, Orlando di Lasso, Gabrieli—each represented their different schools and advanced their Church music on Palestrina’s great model.

After Allegri, at the end of the seventeenth century, the old mediæval style died out, and Durante, Scarlatti, and others of that school appear as a link between the old and new. After them, with their strong tendencies towards elaboration of the instrumental accompaniment, comes Bach, whose mass in B minor, now familiar to us, thanks to Mr. Goldschmidt and the Bach Choir, stands alone. It is not only free from ancient ecclesiastical tradition, but it is actually prophetic in its marvellous harmonic changes and combinations. It is also in style almost an oratorio. Later on we have magnificent masses by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, but more like sacred cantatas than masses. To quote Mr. Rockstro, he rightly says, “Their style has steadily kept pace, step by step, with the progress of modern music, borrowing elasticity from the freedom of its melodies, and richness from the variety of its instrumentation; clothing itself in new and unexpected forms of beauty at every turn; yet _never aiming at the expression of a higher kind of beauty than that pertaining to earthly things, or venturing to utter the language of devotion in preference to that of passion_.” The italics are my own, and I suppose that it is owing to the fact that this individuality and frequent dramatic realism of the composer usurped the abstract sense of the words used, and the devotional idealism of the old schools, that not one note of any of them has ever been heard within the Sistine Chapel at Rome.

The general distribution of the movements of the mass are, strange to say, the same to-day that it was in Palestrina’s time. A mass for the dead, called Requiem, is composed of different numbers, viz., “Requiem æternam dona eis,” “Kyrie,” the grand hymn, “Dies iræ,” “Domini Jesu Christo,” Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus, and “Lux æterna.”

Of the more modern specimens, those of Cherubini and Mozart, and of the most modern, that by Verdi, are all fine examples, the work by Mozart standing high above all the others. It was, as you will remember, mostly written on his deathbed. At the Reformation the mass disappeared from the English Church, and from then until 1840 no choral communions were written. Since the latter date, however, the English versions of the Sanctus, Kyrie, Creed, and Gloria have been used and set to music by most of the writers of Church music already named in connection with the anthem.

DRESS: IN SEASON AND IN REASON.

BY A LADY DRESSMAKER.

As a rule there are not many changes of dress or cut to be chronicled this month. Everyone is thinking of the sales, and the truly wise and economical (of which there are a great many in these days) are more occupied in making the fashions subservient to their purchases, to either inventing or thinking of new designs in dress. We were never so rich in the way of materials as we are this year, though the most popular of all effects in woollen is the serge-weaving, which is mixed with everything—crossbars, and lines of velvet, silk cording, fancy braids, and borders which resemble patchwork in monotone, or inlaid wood flooring, or parqueterie. The serge with velvet crossbars and lines on black serge are very effective and handsome. Indeed, serge seems to have taken the place of cashmere, and is infinitely more becoming in wear.

Ladies’ cloth is also much worn in both dark and light colours. On these a selvedge of a different colour is left, which is sometimes pinked-out, or edged with a cord. These are trimmed with facings, cuffs, and collars of velvet, plush, and moiré, which is now much used for trimmings. Besides this, there are vicuna and camels’ hair, and a large selection of Darlington serges, and others in plain and in stripes, which are at once cheap, ladylike, and extremely durable in wear.

Nun’s cloth is still used with velvet trimmings, and a material called “wool _crépon_” is used as well for evening frocks for girls, and is trimmed profusely with woollen lace. Velveteen is not seen as composing entire dresses, though so largely mixed with woollens of all descriptions.

In colours worn by well-dressed people, heliotrope is still in great favour, and is really lovely in silks, satins, and the handsome cut velvets and _frisés_—dark sapphire blues, carbuncle, red brown, and a mossy green, with an earthy brown and a stone-colour, which are both useful, well-wearing colours.

Now that people are beginning to wear more colour than they formerly did, it is needful to consider harmony in colour more than we did. For young people this is everything. In wearing brown, for instance, it should be harmonised by a little yellow or a lighter shade of brown. In the same way dark-red must be harmonised with pink, and both shades must be seen together, so as to be quite sure that they will not “swear at each other,” as the French funnily express it. With grey a little pale blue must be put in somewhere in the bonnet. Stone-colour will harmonise with a pink, and heliotrope with a paler shade of itself. With grey, blue, and slate silver ornaments look best; but with brown, red, and green shades gold ornaments give the required harmony in colouring.

All very bright hues should be kept away from the face, as only the best of complexions can stand them near the skin. A portrait-painter once told me that the colour of the hair or the hue of the eyes should always be repeated in some part of the dress. But I fancy it may answer for painting, but not to be exemplified in everyday life and habiliments.

Now that belts are coming in again, or rather have come in, it is well to remember that when the waist exceeds twenty-five inches round bands are not becoming, and pointed bodices should be resorted to, and if the front darts be cut very much bowed-in, an effect of slenderness is given to the waist which does not really belong to it. Frills at the neck and wrists are most becoming to thin people with long necks. Short-necked and stout people look best with plain bands of muslin or lace. High shoulders do not consort well with fur capes nor wide fur collars at the neck. The long paletôts or pelisses are very suitable to short people, as the straight lines add to their apparent height. But even in giving these few directions towards helping my readers to becoming and tasteful dress, I fully realise the fact that very few people take the trouble to ascertain what they look like, and perhaps would be grievously offended if they were to be told where the faults of their appearance really lay.

Mantles, as I have frequently said, are all short, none of them coming more than a few inches below the waist at the back, though all are long in front. They are, many of them, much trimmed, though not too much. There are braces to the shoulders, or a kind of yoke of beading, or flat bands of beaded _passementerie_, laid on. Plush seems to be the great material for these mantles, and will be worn not only in the winter, but late in the spring. Some of these plush mantles are coloured, but very few. Sapphire blue, carbuncle red, and a dark mossy green are the most popular colours. They are trimmed with black jet—not a very satisfactory trimming, nor very elegant.

Hoods are seen on jackets and pelisses more than on small mantles. The new shape of sling mantelette is called “Pelerine,” and is nearly a cape in being all round of the same length; but the edges are turned under all round, and in front the linings show, which are of some pale, contrasting colour. The fronts are quite of the sling shape, and if a hood be worn with them it is lined to match. The newest hoods are square, and of the monk order—not gathered up in any way, to make them bunchy at the back. The newest shape of paletôt we now call a “pelisse,” but it is really nothing but a long paletôt, or tight-fitting jacket lengthened to the edge of the skirt. The newest cloaks of this kind brought out this winter have hanging sleeves, and a hood or fur facing, which wraps across at the waist, one end of the fur crossing the other end. The side of the skirt is often opened and then laced together with thick cords, but it may be also edged with fur. Very long cloaks are worn as wraps for carriage use, but only in that way; and for travelling, small mantles are much more fashionable at present.

Jackets are worn as much as ever by young ladies, and are universally plain and rather severe in cut. They are of two kinds, the first with a fur trimming, wide round the neck and shoulders and on the chest, but pointed at the waist, and tight-fitting both at the back and front. The other jacket has a tight back and loose-fitting front, and is either simply stitched round with the machine or bound with galloon or leather—the last the newest and most _recherché_ of bindings. Pilot cloth is used for jackets, as well as Cheviot homespuns, also corduroy, Melton of various kinds, and numbers of fancy cloths under different names. The Irish Claddagh cloth, introduced by Mrs. Ernest Hart, and to be obtained in all colours at the depôt of the Donegal Industrial Fund, is becoming more popular for large wrap-cloaks, little children’s ulsters, and babies’ pelisses. Plush has been adopted as a lining for thin mantles of silk and wool, instead of wadded silk. It is far less clumsy, and quite as warm. In this way many ladies have made use of their handsome summer mantles, and made them warm enough for winter. On mild days no jacket nor mantle is used, but the long boa, or Victorine, or else one of the new large handkerchiefs, knotted on the chest and spread out over the shoulders. These large handkerchiefs are even to be seen worn on the outside of the small tight-fitting jackets.

I have mentioned leather bindings on jackets. They are also used for trimming dresses by the first ladies’ tailors. The colour of the bands or bindings is usually of the lightest shade of the cloth used. Polonaises are growing in popularity every day, and the spring will probably see them well established in favour. The idea of blouse-jackets has produced the blouse-polonaise, which I have selected for the paper pattern of the month. It is draped at the side, but some of the new polonaises are draped at both sides. The edges may be lined with a light harmonising colour which will show when the wearer moves about. Thus a pale grey vicuna would have pale rose-pink linings. Polonaises are becoming fashionable for evening and dinner dress, and have high Marie Stuart collars and long angel sleeves. The neck-bands of dresses are as wide and fit as tightly as ever. They are generally of velvet, and the cuffs also, the latter being only as wide as the collar.

The bodices of ordinary gowns show no change in shape. The favourite front-trimming which has taken the place of waistcoats is a long _revers_ front, the point of the waist to the neck. In fur-trimmed dresses this _revers_ is of fur; also the cuffs, neck band, and a band round the skirt. Many dresses for wear in the house have ruches round the hem; but they are not suitable for wear out of doors, as they are perfect traps for dust. A new style is to put a _dépassant_ (the modern name for a _balayeuse_ frill) round the edge of the dress. This is about an inch and a-half in width, and is pleated in small single box-pleats, and is generally of silk of the same colour as the dress.

The sketch, under the name of “An Afternoon Visit,” shows one of the new polonaises, which buttons across the front. It is of grey cloth, over a petticoat of very dark crimson. The young lady in the hat wears a walking-gown, trimmed with fur, which is put on with plain bands; the material is “ladies’ cloth.” Of the two figures in indoor costume one shows the method of making-up striped materials, and also the new “catogan knot,” with a puff of hair and a curled front. The other dress has a tucked bodice, with a draped front, which simulates a polonaise; the collar and cuffs being of velvet.

In “The Serious Discussion” we have several dresses, one for out-of-doors, trimmed with fur, and showing the method of trimming a short jacket which I have before described. The other dresses are plaids, and show the way in which plain materials are mixed with them. The bodice is of plain material, with a waistcoat-front, and cords and buttons. The figure at the back is an illustration of this month’s paper pattern, the new “blouse polonaise,” which is a very charming adaptation of the “Norfolk” or pleated blouse, now so much worn; it is both easily made and cut out, and is a very useful garment. It may be cut long enough to reach to the edge of the underskirt, and thus follows the fashions of the long lines now in vogue. In this way it is more graceful, but it may be cut shorter, and in this case the skirt must have the box-pleated frill at the edge, which is now called a _dépassant_. The material of which our illustration is made is one of the rough, hairy “vicuna serges,” of a light grey tone, with a darker grey stripe. The bands of the shoulders, front, waist, and collar and cuffs are of this dark grey, in velvet or plush; the first being the most becoming. The ribbon-bow is of the same hue of silk and velvet reversible ribbon. The hem of the polonaise is quite plain, and is machine-hemmed. The paper pattern consists of nine pieces, _i.e._, two sleeve pieces, back, front, cuffs, collar, shoulder-piece, and front-strap. The polonaise will require about ten yards of thirty inch material, and about half a yard of velvet and three yards of ribbon.

All paper patterns supplied by “The Lady Dressmaker” are of medium size—viz., 36 inches round the chest—and only one size is prepared for sale. No turnings are allowed in any of them. Each pattern may be had of “The Lady Dressmaker,” care of Mr. H. G. Davis, 73, Ludgate-hill, E.C., price 1s. each. It is requested that the addresses be clearly given, and that postal notes may be crossed “& Co.,” to go through a bank, as so many losses have recently occurred. The patterns already issued are always kept in stock, as “The Lady Dressmaker” only issues patterns likely to be of constant use in home-dressmaking and altering; and she is particularly careful to give all the new patterns of hygienic underclothing, both for children and old and young ladies, so that no reader of the “G.O.P.” may be ignorant of the best methods of dressing.

The following is a list of the patterns already issued, price 1s. each.

April, 1885, braided loose-fronted jacket; May, velvet bodice; June, Swiss belt and full bodice with plain sleeves; July, mantle; Aug., Norfolk or pleated jacket; September, housemaid’s or plain skirt; October, combination-garment (under-linen), with long sleeves; November, double-breasted jacket; December, Zouave jacket and bodice; January, 1886, Princess under-dress (under-linen, under-bodice and underskirt combined); February, polonaise, with waterfall back; March, new spring bodice; April, divided skirt and Bernhardt mantle, with sling sleeves; May, Early English bodice and yoke bodice for summer dress; June, dressing jacket and Princess frock, with Normandy bonnet for a child of four years old; July, Princess of Wales’s jacket, bodice, and waistcoat, for tailor-made gown; August, bodice with guimpe; September, mantle with stole ends; October, Pyjama, or night-dress combination, with full back; November, new winter bodice; December, patterns of Norfolk blouses, one with a yoke, and one with pleats only; January, 1887, blouse-polonaise, with pleats at back and front.

THE BROOK AND ITS BANKS.

BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A., Author of “The Handy Natural History.”