1852. Means of improving the Parochial Service. 143 the chant. For such a practice there is no authority; while 'on every other ground it is utterly indefensible. If every ' dean or parish priest shall assume a licence to disturb and distrust the form of the Church Service, what hope is there that a regard for any other obligation will be observed? ... Much has been said of what is called "congregational chant""ing," a phrase which could only have originated in ignorance 'of the subject, historically as well as musically regarded. If 'such a practice were attempted, our musicians need give them'selves no further trouble about harmony, which had better be 'suppressed altogether. Melody too should be abandoned; in 'short, all pretence at choral service it would be advisable to give up. Nothing is so difficult as to chant well - nothing is 'more beautiful than the service thus performed-nothing more ludicrous than the attempt of a congregation to scramble 'through it.'* Were the knowledge acquired, it would still take a generation or more to get our devotional thoughts and habits into the new channel. The only effectual means of improving the musical portion of the parochial service will be found in a recurrence to the principle on which it was based, and to the practice which was in accordance with that principle. It may be said that this would demand a state of musical culture similar to that which existed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and doubtless, in order to attain its full and due effect, a more general knowledge of the vocal art must be diffused. But, in case we can credit newspaper accounts of certain periodical exhibitions at Exeter and St. Martin's Halls, this must have been, in no small degree, already attained. If the effect of the system' about which so much has been said and written is not visible, or rather audible, in our places of worship, where are we to look for it? Making every allowance for partial exaggeration, we may surely assume that the power of reading from notes has been considerably extended within the last ten years, and that our means of really improving the music of the parish church are progressively increasing. 6 It should be the especial care of the clergy to avail themselves of these means judiciously and effectively, to induce a love of this inspiring portion of public worship, and to encourage a general desire to aid in it. If it were possible to hear some of the fine psalm-tunes of our old masters sung, as of yore, in foure parts,' by two or three hundred assembled worshippers, little need be added in the way of exhortation and appeal. The effect on the ear, and still more on the heart, would be de * Jebb's Choral Service of the Church of England. cisive. Such effects are realised in Protestant Germany; and why not in Protestant England? Meantime, the aid of the clergy, to be useful, must be given in the right direction, and guided by some knowledge of the subject. But not one clergyman in a thousand thinks it desirable to add to his other acquirements at a university any knowledge of music; although Cambridge and Oxford ought to be eminently the schools of sound musical education. Each University has its musical professor, whose duty it is, and whose practice it formerly was, to give such instruction as the future clergyman will most want. Even Cromwell took care that Dr. Wilson, the Oxford professor of music, regularly gave his music lecture.* This spring of knowledge, if not dried up, is at least disused: though Oxford and Cambridge have still their choirs, indeed scanty and incompetent when compared with their former numbers and attainments; and they have still their musical libraries, unrivalled in England. The machine is in existence; let its rust be rubbed off, and let it be once more set to work: what it once did, it can do again. But until our clergy have acquired the requisite knowledge, let them refrain from any attempt at innovation. They may be sure that the musical service of the Church was not appointed and divided by chance, but was the result of sound knowledge and mature judgment; and that the parties by whom alone it can be successfully broken in upon and reformed, must know what they are about as well as those did who formed the system first. We have already mentioned that the Reformed Churches of Germany and Holland have of late exchanged metrical psalms for hymns. In case we should ever propose following their example, we must give our people better hymns and what is equally important-better schoolmasters, competent to teach their scholars how to sing them. The subject is important at present, both in a religious and political point of view. The semi-Romanists among us must be prevented from depriving the congregation of one of the best and most living elements of the national worship, and from reducing the congregation, even in our parochial churches, by means of anthems and intonations, to the condition of simple assistants, as far as singing is concerned, of a sort of mass in English. When hymns * Passed over by Warton, in his partial account of the Oxford Music School during the Commonwealth. See the note upon Henry Lawes prefixed to Comus, in Warton's edition of Milton's minor poems (p. 132). Where Calvinists or Republicans are concerned, Warton was too prejudiced to be just or accurate. 1852. A few Words on International Copyright. 145 and hymn tunes are provided, it will be still indispensable that the people should be taught. Here every thing depends on the schoolmaster. Can men brought up at St. Mark's, and similar institutions of the National Society, be relied on for this purpose? Can an almost exclusive training in sacerdotal performances, invented and used to exclude congregational singing, as a Protestant nuisance, be a good preparation for it? Next, supposing bishops, deans, and chapters not to be wanting in good will, do they understand enough of music to bear their part in this reform? The publications which stand at the head of this article indicate an increased attention to the history and character of English psalmody, and they also illustrate its state at their different periods. The first, a reprint in score of Est's extremely rare and valuable collection, has been issued by a Society, whose exertions have rescued from impending destruction so many interesting and valuable compositions of the Elizabethan age. The second is a reprint of Ravenscroft's collection (of which the original edition is not less rare than that of Est), by a clergyman whose knowledge of music has been sufficiently evidenced in his various contributions to the cathedral as well as the parochial service. The third presents a more extended and diversified epitome of psalmody in different countries, and through successive epochs; comprising some of the best psalmtunes of the English school, from the time of Tallis to the present day, chorals of Bach and other eminent German musicians, and those also of the Genevan and other foreign Protestant Churches. ART. V.-Assemblée Nationale Legislative. Projet de loi relatif à une Convention littéraire entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne, précédé de l'exposé des motifs présenté par M. TURGOT, Ministre des Affaires Etrangère. 11 Nov., 1851. ALTHOUGH literary theft is carried on more or less in every country possessed of a reading public,-in France by the reprints of English novels, in England by the appropriation of French plays, and in America and Belgium by the reproduction of almost every thing that the intellectual industry of the two other countries produces, we believe that Belgium is now the only nation which is not thoroughly ashamed of the practice, and in which public men have been found to uphold openly the VOL. XCV. NO. CXCIII. L right of piracy. There, indeed, a party exists which, under pretence of cheap diffusion of knowledge, defends the contrefaçon trade, as a lawful branch of national industry, and inveighs against authors who expect a remuneration for their labours, and against publishers who purchase copyrights, denouncing them as monopolists.'* England and France, and even America, though somewhat tardily, have at length concurred in the necessity of putting a stop to a state of things which, in the case of original works, injures authors in exact proportion to the services they render to the public, and, in the case of translations, has the effect of depriving that public of many valuable foreign works. It is well known, that for some time past no publisher in this country could afford to pay an adequate price for a good translation, there being no copyright in such cases. The result was, that competent scholars shrank from undertaking the ungrateful, though meritorious task, and that England has been overrun with bad versions of books which would have deserved better treatment. The general public has with great difficulty been brought to recognise the justice and policy of allowing the rights of foreign authorship, and thereby securing the claims of our own writers and publishers abroad. There was a vulgar impression in the world, that publishers were men who made a great deal of money from other people's labours, and that authors were men who did not require money at all. They wrote books, it was supposed, as bees made honey, because it was their nature to do so, and for work's sake. Every reader thought, that, if he could write, he would like it very much, and, in fact, considered all pecuniary remuneration as clear gain, where no tangible capital was expended. The publishers, it is true, did advance money out of pocket; but what then?-they make such profits! In short, the idea, that in buying a Brussels or Leipsic edition of an English work they were receiving stolen goods, never seemed to enter the heads of our Continental tourists. Where any particular kind of interest remains unprotected by law, public opinion is almost sure to become diseased, and to withdraw even its protection, at least in the quarters most * We borrow this curious expression from a memorial addressed to the Belgian Minister of Commerce. The deputation which presented it was headed by M. Cans, a member for Brussels, and moreover a partner in the great house of Meline and Cans, the chief manufactory of spurious editions in Brussels. According to this theory, any man who buys a house or marries a wife, might be termed a monopolist. 1852. Lukewarmness of Authors on this Subject. 147 open to temptation. This has been the case under our absurd Game Laws, and in some degree in the case both of copyright and patent, under our slow and inadequate recognition of a property in ideas. Subjects even of the same state, who would venture on violating no right guarded by the criminal law, violate this during the short existence allowed it, yet apparently grudged it, under a sort of compromise by the civil law. What wonder then that a just and honourable feeling on this subject has been long in growing up between nation and nation, notwithstanding the odious name of piracy? Singularly enough, too, the invincible army which wields the pen, and to whose efforts the removal of almost every abuse may in the present day be traced, has rarely shown for the defence of its own interests that energy which it has so often displayed in more unselfish causes. Men have written on the Rights of Labour, or the Laws of Property, who seemed scarcely aware that they themselves possessed the only property under the sun which no law protected from foreign robbery, and that the fruits of their labour were at the mercy of every pirate, provided the robber was not a fellow-subject. Even in the present day, writers, whose sole object in life seems to be to wage war on unequal taxation in every shape, appear quite unconscious that they belong to the most heavily taxed class of the community, and, while rebelling against imports on windows or sugars, tamely submit to that accumulation of burdens designated by abuse-hunters under the general name of Taxes on Know'ledge.' The first stir in the international copyright question came from the publishers; but the monstrous iniquity, once placed fairly before the public, can scarcely fail to be done away with; for it must be said, to the honour of the present age, that, when a thing is once proved to be unjust, its doom is sealed. There is, it is true, in some instances, an unaccountable but general fear of too speedy reforms, -a vague respect for vested rights in abuses, an idea that, if nations were too abruptly recalled to honest courses, some catastrophe might ensue, upon the same principle, we suppose, as we are told not to appease the hunger of a starving man too suddenly, or unguardedly expose frozen limbs to the heat of fire. Still, sooner or later, the abuse falls to the ground, and people wonder how it lasted so long. The repression of literary piracy seems likely to follow the usual course; the evil has been attacked in its minor branches first, leaving the root untouched. English authors and publishers are still robbed with impunity by the American pirates, and France continues to furnish gratis the only literature that Belgium enjoys; but, in 1846, England |