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AMBROSIAL AND GREGORIAN CHANT. 305
the former being strong and majestic, while the latter was sweet-toned, and well arranged.* This distinction is utterly meaningless to us, for the Gregorian chant is certainly majestic and strong, at least to our ears.
Gregory also founded a singing school in Home, which was large enough to occupy two good-sized edifices. In this he probably taught personally.
There have been shown as relics of his instruction, the couch on which he sat while teaching, and the rod with which the boys were corrected, or awed into giving proper attention to their studies.
The amplification which he made in the Ambro-sian scale was the addition of four tones or plagal modes, and also that he totally abolished the difficult Greek nomenclature, such as para-mese and proslambanomenos, and gave the names of the first seven letters of the Roman alphabet, to the seven notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, in the same manner as used to-day. There is no question but that the scale founded by Gregory, had a diatonic character, but as to the number of systems of tones employed, authorities differ, and even the books of music of Gregory's own compilation (one of which was chained to the altar at St. Peters, to fix the standard of tone for ever and ever) do not clear up the difficulty, for the number differs.
But the system gradually settled itself, and eight tones only (our ordinary diatonic scale
• Ambros, T. 2, p. 45.
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