CHAPTER V

CHURCH MUSIC


Dickens has not much to say about church music as such, but the
references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light
upon it during the earlier years of his life. In _Our Parish_
(_S.B._) we read about the old naval officer who

finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the
organist ought to be ashamed of himself, and offers to
back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better
than all the children put together.

This reminds us that during the first half of last century,
and indeed later in many places, the church choir as we know
it did not exist, and the leading of the singing was entrusted
to the children of the charity school under the direction of
the clerk, a custom which had existed since the seventeenth
century. The chancel was never used for the choir, and the
children sat up in the gallery at the west end, on either side
of the organ. In a City church that Dickens attended the choir
was limited to two girls. The organ was so out of order that
he could 'hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of
any music.' When the service began he was so depressed that,
as he says,

I gave but little heed to our dull manner of ambling
through the service; to the brisk clerk's manner of