ke "a pair of
bellows." Organs were in use in the church at any rate in the fourth
century, and were introduced into England by Archbishop Theodore. In
old times there was no official organist; the duty was taken by the
master of the choristers or one of the gentlemen of the choir. In
churches of the regular foundation a monk played.

English Church music, in its proper sense, began with the Reformation.
In the Roman Church, the great genius of Palestrina had produced
nothing less than a revolution as regards the ancient Plain Song; and
with the English Liturgy we associate the honoured names of Tallis,
Merbecke, Byrd, Farrant in the early days, and a splendid list of
successors right down to our time, wherein is still no falling off.
Tallis is supposed by Rimbault to have been a pupil of Mulliner, the
organist of St. Paul's, but there is no evidence to support this. It
must be confessed that his service in the Dorian mode, which heads the
collection in Boyce's Cathedral Music, and which is indeed the first
harmonised setting of the Canticles ever composed for the English
Liturgy, is very dull, but his harmony of the Litany and of the
Versicles after the Creed, has never been equalled for beauty. His
Canon tune, to which we sing Ken's Evening Hymn, is also unsurpassed,
and his anthem, "If ye love Me," is one of wonderful sweetness and
devout feeling. John Redford was his contemporary, and was organist
of St. Paul's, 1530-1540. His anthem, "Rejoice in the Lord," is as
impressive and stately as Tallis's that I have just named. It is
frequently sung at St. Paul's still. William Byrd was senior chorister
of St. Paul's in 1554. I hold his service in D minor to be the finest
which had as yet been set to the Reformed Liturgy--the Nicene Creed
in particular is of marvellous beauty. Tallis had not attempted
"expression" in his setting of the Canticles. The meaning seems to
breathe all through Byrd's harmonies. I did not know until I read Sir
George Grove's article upon him, that Byrd secretly remained a Roman
Catholic, but I long ago made up my mind, on my own judgment, that his
most pathetic anthem, "Bow thine ear," was a wail over the iconoclasm
in St. Paul's. He died in extreme old age in 1623. Morley was another
organist of St. Paul's, the author of a fine setting of the Burial
Service. Paul Hentzner, who visited St. Paul's in 1598, says in his
_Itinerary_, "It has a very fine organ, which at evensong, accompanied
with othe