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Fourthly, that the number of singers had already been halved in many places, and the money went into prebendaries' purses; that half the lodgings or chambers appointed by the founders for the singing men, had either been kept by prebendaries, or let at a yearly rent, they pocketing the money; and that places were left open a year and a half, under pretence of not having found competent persons. If, therefore, says the writer, in cathedrals, where the original number of singers was forty, " now diminished to twenty," they be again "lessened to ten, how absurd will it be that such large and stately buildings should be supplied by so few, whose voices will only sound but as a little clapper in a great bell!"
It ends with a recommendation that the statutes of every foundation may be examined; for, although deans lived like deans, and prebendaries and canons lived like prebendaries and canons, " the poor singing men do live like miserable beggars;" and " if the said lands be not employed to the true use and intention of the founder, as the members are sworn to preserve them, the aforesaid oath is violated and broken, and the abuse needeth reformation." a
As these abuses were not reformed, it may be inferred that the deans and chapters were too powerful for the singing men, as they were in the late ecclesiastical commission, which has perpetuated the misappropriation of the trusts intended for their benefit by the founders. Well might the poet exclaim that—
" fat Cathedral bodies Have very often but lean little souls."b
As to the Puritans, many of the clergy who were raised to preferments in Queen Elizabeth's reign, spent the time of their exile in such churches as followed the Genevan form of worship, and returned much disaffected to the rites and ceremonies that were re-established, and especially to cathedral service. The dislike to cathedral service was not exclusively acquired in exile, for Thomas Beeon, who was afterwards made Prebendary of Canterbury by Queen Elizabeth, had printed his Authorized Reliques of Rome in the last year of the reign of Edward VI. In that work he says, " As for the Divine Service and Common Prayer, it is so chaunted and minced and mangled of our costly, hired, curious, and nice musitions (not to instruct the audience withall, nor to stirre up men's minds unto devotion, but with a lascivious harmony to tickle their ears), that it may justly seeme, not to be a noyse made of men, but rather a bleating of brute beasts; whiles the choristers, neigh a descant as it were a sort of colts; others bellow a tenour as it were a company of oxen; others bark a counterpoint as it were a kennell of dogs; others roar out a treble like a sort of bulls; others grunt out base as it were a number of hogs." °
In 1572, Thomas Cartwright, a violent Puritan, and Margaret Professor of
* Tl;e manuscript from which these extracts are made1 gistrutn Eleemosynaries D. Pauli Londinensis, 4to., 1827 ;
is in tile British Museum (MSS. Reg. 18, B. 19), bound and A Correspondence and Evidence respecting the ancient
up with James the First's versification of the Psalms in Collegiate Sc?iool attached to St. Paul's Cathedral, 4to.,
his owi handwriting. 1832. Also the various publications of Priiig, theorganist
bSet on this subject, An Apology for Cathedral Service, of Bangor. The case of the Minor Canons of Cauter-
8vo., 1J39. The Choral Service of the United Church of bury, &c, &c. The same tale of violated trusts is told
Englai d and Ireland, by the Rev. John Jebb, 8vo., 1843. in all.
Miss Kackett's three privately-printed books, viz., Brief c This passage is quoted by Prynne, in his Hisirio-
Accotihlof Cathedral and Collegiate Schools, with an a&- mastix, the Player's Scourge, 4to., 1633, as well as an
stract of their Statutes and Endowments, 4to., 1827; Be- extract already printed here (Note C, p. 18), from John of |
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