OLb CHURCH BA&DS AND VILLAGE CHOIRS. I?3 



of a wooden pitch-pipe. Towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century, however, an awakened interest was aroused throughout 

 the country in the better care of the church fabric and the more 

 hearty rendering of the Church service. The old pitch-pipes 

 were discarded, and, although the clerk from his seat below the 

 parson's desk still sustained the dignity of his office by a long- 

 drawn Amen, yet the more tuneful portions of the service were 

 undertaken by a select company of " singers and musicianeis," 

 who, installed at the west end of the sacred building or occupy- 

 ing the western gallery, which they soon regarded as having 

 been especially erected for their comfort, filled with mingled 

 admiration and envy the up-turned faces of the congregation. 



How graphic a picture Thomas Hardy gives us of these old 

 Dorset choirs in his charming tale of village life, " Under the 

 Greenwood Tree"! The importance of the "men of strings," 

 who, with violin and violoncello (still called, though erroneously, 

 the "base viol"), "spoke to the heart with an incomparable 

 sweetness " their rooted objection to the " reed men '' who, with 

 "tooting clar'nets," were gradually introduced into the select 

 company. " Clar'nets were not made for the service of Provi- 

 dence," said Mr. Penny ; "you can see it by looking at 'em "- 

 their unspeakable horror at the impudence of the girls of the 

 newly-formed Sunday School, "who didn't sit in the gallery, and 

 yet did sing every note as if 'twas their own, every note as loud 

 as we, fiddles and all, if not louder the brazen-faced hussies, 

 while as for them harmoniums and barrel-organs what shall 

 I call em ? miserable machines for such a Divine thing as 

 music." "Right, William, and so they be miserable sinners." 

 Unfortunately, as many of us think, the miserable sinners won 

 the day ; harmoniums and barrel-organs proved the death of the 

 gallery men, and few of the present generation have seen the 

 church band in its accustomed place or raised their voices to the 

 accompaniment of the village musicians. 



It is, however, only ten years ago since one of the last, if not 

 the last, of these bands in its original form (without the inevitable 

 harmonium) disappeared in our county, and I have been 



