to repeat each line, probably because, at the first
introduction of psalms into our service great numbers of the common
people were unable to read." The author of _The Parish Clerk's Guide_
states that "since faction prevailed in the Church, and troubles in the
State, Church music has laboured under inevitable prejudices, more
especially by its being decried by some misguided and peevish sectaries
as popery and anti-Christ, and so the minds of the common people are
alienated from Church music, although performed by men of the greatest
skill and judgment, under whom was wont to be trained up abundance of
youth in the respective cathedrals, that did stock the whole kingdom at
one time with good and able songsters." The Company of Parish Clerks of
London [to the history and records of which we shall have occasion
frequently to refer] did good service in promoting the musical training
of the members and in upholding the dignity of their important office.
In the edition of _The Parish Clerk's Guide_ for 1731, the writer
laments over the diminished status of his order, and states that "the
clerk is oftentimes chosen rather for his poverty, to prevent a charge
to the parish, than either for his virtue or skill; or else for some
by-end or purpose, more than for the immediate Honour and Service of
Almighty God and His Church."

If that was the case in rich and populous London parishes, how much more
was it true in poor village churches? Hence arose the race of country
clerks who stumbled over and miscalled the hard words as they occurred
in the Psalms, who sang in a strange and weird fashion, and brought
discredit on their office. Indeed, the clergy were not always above
suspicion in the matter of reading, and even now they have their
detractors, who assert that it is often impossible to hear what they
say, that they read in a strained unnatural voice, and are generally
unintelligible. At any rate, modern clergy are not so deficient in
education as they were in the early years of Queen Elizabeth, when, as
Fuller states in his _Triple Reconciler_, they were commanded "to read
the chapters over once or twice by themselves that so they might be the
better enabled to read them distinctly to the congregation." If the
clergy were not infallible in the matter of the pronunciation of
difficult words, it is not surprising that the clerk often puzzled or
amused his hearers, and mangled or skipped the proper names, after the
fashion of th