The Parish Clerk | Page 3

sleep."
The squire's pew was a wondrous structure, with its own special
fire-place, the fire in which the old gentleman used to poke vigorously
when the parson was too long in preaching. It was amply furnished, this
squire's pew, with arm-chairs and comfortable seats and stools and
books. Such a pew all furnished and adorned did a worthy clerk point
out to the witty Bishop of Oxford, Bishop Wilberforce, with much
pride and satisfaction. "If there be ought your lordship can mention to
mak' it better, I'm sure Squire will no mind gettin' on it."
The bishop, with a merry twinkle in his eye, turned round to the vicar,
who was standing near, and maliciously whispered:
"A card table!"
Such comfortable squires' pews still exist in some churches, but
"restoration" has paid scanty regard to old-fashioned notions and ideas,
and the squire and his family usually sit nowadays on benches similar
to those used by the rest of the congregation.
Then the choir sat in the west gallery and made strange noises and sang
curious tunes, the echoes of which we shall try to catch. No organ then
pealed forth its reverent tones and awaked the church with dulcet

harmonies: a pitch-pipe often the sole instrument. And then--what
terrible hymns were sung! Well did Campbell say of Sternhold and
Hopkins, the co-translators of the Psalms of David into English metre,
"mistaking vulgarity for simplicity, they turned into bathos what they
found sublime." And Tate and Brady's version, the "Dry Psalter" of
"Samuel Oxon's" witticism, was little better. Think of the poetical
beauties of the following lines, sung with vigour by a bald-headed
clerk:
"My hairs are numerous, but few Compared to th' enemies that me
pursue."
It was of such a clerk and of such psalmody that John Wilmot, Earl of
Rochester, in the seventeenth century wrote his celebrated epigram:
"Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms When they translated David's
Psalms, To make the heart more glad; But had it been poor David's fate
To hear thee sing and them translate, By Jove, 'twould have drove him
mad."
When the time for singing the metrical Psalm arrived, the clerk gave
out the number in stentorian tones, using the usual formula, "Let us
sing to the praise and glory of God the one hundred and fourth Psalm,
first, second, seving (seven), and eleving verses with the Doxology."
Then, pulling out his pitch-pipe from the dusty cushions of his seat, he
would strut pompously down the church, ascend the stairs leading to
the west gallery, blow his pipe, and give the basses, tenors, and soprano
voices their notes, which they hung on to in a low tone until the clerk
returned to his place in the lowest tier of the "three-decker" and started
the choir-folk vigorously. Those Doxologies at the end! What a trouble
they were! You could find them if you knew where to look for them at
the end of the Prayer Book after Tate and Brady's metrical renderings
of the Psalms of David. There they were, but the right one was hard to
find. Some had two syllables too much to suit the tune, and some had
two syllables too little. But it did not matter very greatly, and we were
accustomed to add a word here, or leave out one there; it was all in a
day's work, and we went home with the comfortable reflection that we
had done our best.

But a pitch-pipe was not usually the sole instrument. Many village
churches had their band, composed of fiddles, flutes, clarionets, and
sometimes bassoons and a drum. "Let's go and hear the baboons," said
a clerk mentioned by the Rev. John Eagles in his Essays. In order to
preserve strict historical accuracy, I may add that this invitation was
recorded in the year 1837, and therefore could have no reference to
evolutionary theories and the Descent of Man. This clerk, who
invariably read "Cheberims and Sepherims," and was always "a lion to
my mother's children," looking not unlike one with his shaggy hair and
beard, was not inviting a neighbour to a Sunday afternoon at the Zoo,
but only to hear the bassoons.
When the clerk gave out the hymn or Psalm, or on rare occasions the
anthem, there was a strange sound of tuning up the instruments, and
then the instruments wailed forth discordant melody. The clerk
conducted the choir, composed of village lads and maidens, with a few
stalwart basses and tenors. It was often a curious performance.
Everybody sang as loud as he could bawl; cheeks and elbows were at
their utmost efforts, the bassoon vying with the clarionet, the
goose-stop of the clarionet with the bassoon--it was Babel with the
addition of the beasts. And they were all so proud of their performance.
It was