370 
MUSIC. 
aftion is very fuperior to thofe of the old form. They 
afford a greater quantity of wind, in proportion to the 
cafe-room they occupy j the prefl'ure is more equal; and 
they are not liable to jerk or quiver. Though lately 
brought into common ufe, they are by no means a mo¬ 
dern invention, as Pere Merfenne defcribes them under 
the name of bellows a la lanterne. 
All the internal ftrudlure of the organ is concealed from 
fight by the front of the inllrument, which Hands upon 
the part between the numbers 3 and 6 (fig. 1.) In every 
organ, the number of partitions L L, M M, &c. that are 
in the found-board (fig. 1.) that of the valves VV, that 
of the rollers ss, or of the levers xy or 8 9 and their wires, 
and that of the keys ABC, &c. muff be always equal. 
The keys are placed between GG, but the fcheme could 
not contain them all. There are alfo as many handles 
I, l, Se c. rollers R R, See. Aiders f,f, Sec. as there are flops 
upon the organ; and it muft be obi'erved, that between 
the Aiders f,f, Sec. there are as many Aiders on the right 
hand, and the fame number of handles and rollers, and 
other row's of pipes placed between L N, P Q, which 
could not be expreffed in the figure. The leaft pipes and 
partitions are placed toward the middle of the organ, and 
the greatefl on the outfide. The flops of an organ have 
various denominations, according to the founds they are 
to produce; fome of which are diapafon, principal, fif¬ 
teenth, twelfth, tierce, cornet, trumpet, French horn, 
vox humana, flute, baffoon, cremona, &c. The foreign 
organs, efpecially thofe of Germany, have many more: 
particularly that in the abbey-church of Weingarten, a 
town in the Upper Palatinate, which has 66 flops, and 
contains no fewer than 6666 pipes. The organ at Haerlem 
is faid to have 60 flops, many of them but little known 
to the Englifh workmen, and diftinguifhed bynames that 
exprefs the founds which they produce. 
When this magnificent inllrument is played, the han¬ 
dle O of the bellows is firfl put down, which raifes the 
upper board T, and gives room for the air to enter by the 
valve r. Then the other handle O is put down : in the 
mean time the board T, belonging to the firfl handle, de- 
feending, and fhutting the valve r, drives the air through 
the other valve, up the port-vent, and into the wind-cheft. 
Then drawing out any handle, as that of the flute-flop pi, 
which draws out the flider/g-, all the pipes in the fet L N 
are ready to play, as foon as the keys C, D, E, &c. are 
put down ; therefore, if the key D be put down, it opens 
the correfponding valve mV, through w'hich the air en¬ 
ters into the pipe X, and makes it found. In the fame 
manner any other pipe in the fet LN, will found when its 
key is put down ; but no pipe, in any other fet, will found 
till the Aider be drawn out by its correfponding handle. 
The number of keys, or compafs of the organ, in the 
time of father Schmidt, was commonly confined to four 
o6taves; from double C in the bafs, to C in alt. To thefe, 
two notes, GG and A A, were fometimes added to the 
loweft oftave. An organ of this compafs is faid to have 
thort oftaves. When the keys are extended to G G in re¬ 
gular fucceflion, the organ is faid to have long compafs. 
The modern builders have extended the keys upwards to 
F in altiflimo. 
Befides the manuals, or keys for the hand, there are, in 
fome large church-organs, pedals, or keys played with the 
feet; faid to be the invention of Bernard, a German, 
about the year 1400. Thefe command certain pipes, 
which, to increafe the harmony, are tuned an oflave be¬ 
low the diapafon. It is much to be lamented, that the 
Englilh builders have not followed fome certain and in¬ 
variable rule for the pofition of their pedals, as they do 
for their keys. Scarcely two organs in the kingdom have 
their pedals alike, either with refpedt to number or pofi¬ 
tion ; fo that every performer, who comes to an organ 
with which he is not previoufly acquainted (be he ever fo 
ikilful in the ufe of pedals), has the whole of his buiinefs 
to learn again. The dilpofition of the pedals of the fine 
organ in St. Paul’s cathedral, might ferve as a model for 
all other EngliAi organs. Each oflave of the pedal occu¬ 
pies the fipace of two octaves of the finger-keys; and the 
C’s are placed under each other. 
Among the modern improvements of the organ, the 
moll remarkable are the fwell and the tremblant. The 
fwell is faid to be an EngliAi invention ; and Dr. Burney, 
in his Tour through Germany, fays that he found only 
one organ in which a fwell had. been attempted, and that 
in a very imperfefl manner. The fwell has its pipes in- 
clofed in a flout wooden box, with abiding door; which, 
being gradually opened by the prelfure of the performer’s 
foot, the found is increafed, and is diminiAied by a con¬ 
trary motion. The fwell organ is commonly placed in 
the upper part of the cafe, either over the great organ, or 
over the choir-organ. The tremblant is a contrivance 
by means of a valve in the port-vent, or palfage from the 
wind-cheft, to check the wind, and admititonly by ftarts; 
fo that the notes feem to Hammer, and the whole inll'ru- 
ment to fob, in a very lingular manner. There is a trem¬ 
blant in the organ at the German chapel in the Savoy. 
Thofe who wilh to be further informed in the hiftory 
and practice of organ-building, are referred to L’Harmonie 
Univerfelle, folio, Paris, 1636; Harmonicorum Libri Duo- 
decimi, folio, Paris, 1648 ; Fadteur d’Orgues, Paris, 1766; 
and Mr. Mafon’s Effays on EngliAi Church Mufic. 
The organs in our churches, that have been well pre- 
ferved, of father Schmidt’s make, fuch as St. Paul’s, the 
Temple, St. Mary’s, Oxford, Trinity-college, Cambridge, 
Sec. are far fuperior in tone to any of more modern con- 
ftruftion ; but the mechanifm has been improved during 
the laft century, by Byfield, Snetzler, Green, Gray, Sec. 
The touch is lighter, the compafs extended, and the 
reed-work admirable. The dulciana-ftop, brought hither 
by Snetzler, is a tall, delicate, narrow, pipe, of an ex- 
quifite fweet tone, without a reed ; on which account it 
ftands in tune equally well with the open diapafon. 
Though the bell keyed-inftruments in England have been 
made by Germans, they work here better than in their 
own country in fize and number of flops: they greatly 
lurpafs us in the fize of their organs, but the mechanifm is 
infinitely inferior ; which is accounted for by the work- 
manfliip being better paid here than in the German do¬ 
minions, where labour is cheap. 
The long keys of our old church-organs were made of 
box or ebony, and the fliort, or flats and fliarps, of ivory. 
But at prefent, the long keys, or natural notes, like thofe 
in harpfichords and piano-fortes, are of ivory, and the flats 
and fliarps of ebony, or dyed pear-tree wood. 
An organ, when complete for cathedrals, is of three¬ 
fold conltruftion, and furnilhed with three fets of keys; 
one for what is called the great organ, and which is the 
middle fet, a fecond (or lower fet) for the choir-organ, 
and a third (or upper fet) for the fwell. In the great 
organ, the principal flops are: the two diapafons, the 
principal, the twelfth, the fifteenth, the fefquialtera, the 
mixture or furniture, the trumpet, the clarion, and the 
cornet. The choir-organ ufually contains the ftopt dia¬ 
pafon, the dulciana, the principal, the flute, the balfoon, 
and the vox humana. The fwell comprifes the two dia¬ 
pafons, the principal, the hautboy, trumpet, and cornet. 
In attempting to deferibe the requifites of a good organ, 
we fliall begin with the bellows ; which, befides being of 
a fize fully adequate to fupply the chorus, fliould at all 
times give an equal weight of wind. This may be known, 
by holding down two notes of the diapafon, or any other 
flop, when the bellows are nearly full, and obl'erving 
whether they continue in the lame relative llate of tune, 
until the bellows are nearly empty. If they do, the wind 
is equal; without which, no organ can ever be in tune ; 
alfo, when carefully blown, no difference fliould be heard 
from the aftion of blowing. In like manner, a Angle 
note of the diapafon fliould continue unaltered in its 
pitch, and fmooth in its tone, while the other flops are 
added in fucceflion, until the whole chorus be drawn. 
This proves that the wind meets with no impediment in 
its 
