CHAPTER LXVII.
A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY MORALIZED.
Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de verité.
GARASSE.
It is related of the great mythological personage Baly, that Veeshnoo, when he dispossessed him of his impious power, allowed him in mitigation of his lot, to make his choice, whether he would go to the Swerga, and take five ignorant persons with him who were to be his everlasting companions there, or to Padalon and have five Pundits in his company. Baly preferred the good company with the bad quarters.
That that which is called good company has led many a man to a place which it is not considered decorous to mention before “ears polite,” is a common and, therefore, the more an awful truth. The Swerga and Padalon are the Hindoo Heaven and Hell; and if the Hindoo fable were not obviously intended to extol the merits of their Pundits, or learned men, as the missionary Ward explains the title, it might with much seeming likelihood bear this moral interpretation; that Baly retained the pride of knowledge even when convinced by the deprivation of his power that the pride of power was vanity, and in consequence drew upon himself a further punishment by his choice.
For although Baly, because of the righteousness with which he had used his power, was so far favoured by the Divinity whom he had offended, that he was not condemned to undergo any of those torments of which there was as rich an assortment and as choice a variety in Padalon, as ever monkish imagination revelled in devising, it was at the best a dreadful place of abode: and so it would appear if Turner were to paint a picture of its Diamond City from Southey's description. I say Turner, because though the subject might seem more adapted to Martin's cast of mind, Turner's colouring would well represent the fiery streams and the sulphureous atmosphere; and that colouring being transferred from earthly landscapes to its proper place his rich genius would have full scope for its appropriate display. Baly no doubt, as a state prisoner who was to be treated with the highest consideration as well as with the utmost indulgence, would have all the accommodations that Yamen could afford him. There he and the Pundits might
reason high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And find no end, in wandering mazes lost.
They might argue there of good and evil,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
and such discourses possibly
—with a pleasing sorcery might charm
Pain for awhile and anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
But it would only be for awhile that they could be thus beguiled by it, for it is
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!
it would be only for a while, and they were there for a time which in prospect must appear all but endless. The Pundits would not thank him for bringing them there; Baly himself must continually wish he were breathing the heavenly air of the Swerga in the company of ignorant but happy associates, and he would regret his unwise choice even more bitterly than he remembered the glorious city wherein he had reigned in his magnificence.
He made a great mistake. If he had gone with the ignorant to Heaven he would have seen them happy there, and partaken their happiness, though they might not have been able to derive any gratification from his wisdom;—which said wisdom, peradventure, he himself when he was there might have discovered to be but foolishness. It is only in the company of the good that real enjoyment is to be found; any other society is hollow and heartless. You may be excited by the play of wit, by the collision of ambitious spirits, and by the brilliant exhibition of self-confident power; but the satisfaction ends with the scene. Far unlike this is the quiet confiding intercourse of sincere minds and friendly hearts, knowing and loving and esteeming each other; and such intercourse our philosopher enjoyed in Doncaster.
Edward Miller the Organist was a person very much after Daniel Dove's own heart. He was a warm-hearted, simple-hearted, right-hearted man; an enthusiast in his profession, yet not undervaluing, much less despising, other pursuits. The one Doctor knew as little of music as the other did of medicine; but Dr. Dove listened to Miller's performance with great pleasure, and Dr. Miller when he was indisposed took Dove's physic with perfect faith.
This musician was brother to William Miller, the bookseller, well known in the early part of the present century as a publisher of splendid works, to whose flourishing business in Albemarle Street the more flourishing John Murray succeeded. In the worldly sense of the word the musician was far less fortunate than the bibliopole, a doctorate in his own science, being the height of the honours to which he attained, and the place of organist at Doncaster the height of the preferment. A higher station was once presented to his hopes. The Marquis of Rockingham applied in his behalf for the place of Master of his Majesty's band of musicians, then vacated by the death of Dr. Boyce; and the Duke of Manchester, who was at that time Lord Chamberlain, would have given it him if the King had not particularly desired him to bestow it on Mr. Stanley, the celebrated blind performer on the organ. Dr. Miller was more gratified by this proof of the Marquis's good will towards him than disappointed at its failure. Had the application succeeded he would not have written the History of Doncaster; nor would he have borne a part in a well-intended and judicious attempt at reforming our church psalmody, in which part of our church service reformation is greatly needed. This meritorious attempt was made when George Hay Drummond, whose father had been Archbishop of York, was Vicar of Doncaster, having been presented to that vicarage in 1785, on the demise of Mr. Hatfield.
At that time the Parish Clerk used there as in all other parish churches to chuse what psalm should be sung “to the praise and glory of God,” and what portions of it; and considering himself as a much more important person in this department of his office than the organist, the only communication upon the subject which he held with Dr. Miller, was to let him know what tune he must play, and how often he was to repeat it. “Strange absurdity!” says Miller. “How could the organist placed in this degrading situation, properly perform his part of the church service? Not knowing the words, it was impossible for him to accommodate his music to the various sentiments contained in different stanzas; consequently his must be a mere random performance, and frequently producing improper effects.” This however is what only a musician would feel; but it happened one Sunday that the clerk gave out some verses which were either ridiculously inapplicable to the day, or bore some accidental and ludicrous application, so that many of the congregation did not refrain from laughter. Mr. Drummond upon this, for he was zealously attentive to all the duties of his calling, said to Miller, “that in order to prevent any such occurrence in future he would make a selection of the best verses in each psalm, from the authorized version of Tate and Brady, and arrange them for every Sunday and festival throughout the year, provided he, the organist, who was perfectly qualified for such a task, would adapt them to proper music.” To such a man as Miller this was the greatest gratification that could have been afforded; and it proved also to be the greatest service that was ever rendered to him in the course of his life; for through Mr. Drummond's interest, the King and the Bishop patronized the work, and nearly five thousand copies were subscribed for, the list of subscribers being, it is believed, longer than had ever been obtained for any musical publication in this kingdom.
Strange to say, nothing of this kind had been attempted before; for the use of psalmody in our churches was originally no part of the service; but having as it were, crept in, and been at first rather suffered than encouraged, and afterwards allowed and permitted only, not enjoined, no provision seems ever to have been made for its proper, or even decent performance. And when an arrangement like this of Mr. Drummond's had been prepared, and Dr. Miller, with sound judgement, had adapted it where that could be done, to the most popular of the old and venerable melodies which had been so long in possession, it may seem more strange that it should not have been brought into general use. This I say might be thought strange, if any instance of that supine and sinful negligence which permits the continuance of old and acknowledged defects in the church establishment, and church service, could be thought so.
Mr. Drummond had probably been led to think upon this subject by Mason's conversation, and by his Essays, historical and critical, on English Church Music. Mason who had a poet's ear and eye was ambitious of becoming both a musician and a painter. According to Miller he succeeded better in his musical than in his pictorial attempts, for he performed decently on the harpsichord; but in painting he never arrived even at a degree of mediocrity, and in music it was not possible to teach him the principles of composition, Miller and others having at his own desire attempted in vain to instruct him. Nevertheless, such a man, however superficial his knowledge of the art, could not but feel and reason justly upon its use and abuse in our Church Service; and he was for restricting the organist much in the same way that Drummond and Miller were for restraining the clerk. For after observing that what is called the voluntary requires an innate inventive faculty, which is certainly not the lot of many; and that the happy few who possess it will not at all times be able to restrain it within the bounds which reason and, in this case, religion would prescribe, he said, “it was to be wished therefore that in our established church extempore playing were as much discountenanced as extempore praying; and that the organist were as closely obliged in this solo and separate part of his office to keep to set forms, as the officiating minister; or as he himself is when accompanying the choir in an anthem, or a parochial congregation in a psalm.” He would have indulged him however with a considerable quantity of these set forms, and have allowed him, if he approached in some degree to Rousseau's high character of a Preluder, “to descant on certain single grave texts which Tartini, Geminiani, Corelli or Handel would abundantly furnish, and which may be found at least of equal elegance and propriety in the Largo and Adagio movements of Haydn or Pleyel.”
Whatever Miller may have thought of this proposal, there was a passage in Mason's Essay in favour of voluntaries which was in perfect accord with Dr. Dove's notions. “Prompt and as it were casual strains,” says the Poet, “which do not fix the attention of the hearer, provided they are the produce of an original fancy, which scorns to debase itself by imitating common and trivial melodies, are of all others the best adapted to induce mental serenity. We in some sort listen to such music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that power in a superior degree. All that is to be attended to by the organist is to preserve such pleasing simplicity; and this musical measures will ever have, if they are neither strongly accented, nor too regularly rhythmical. But when this is the case, they cease to soothe us, because they begin to affect us. Add to this that an air replete with short cadences and similar passages is apt to fix itself too strongly on the memory; whereas a merely melodious or harmonical movement glides, as it were, through the ear, awakens a transient pleasing sensation, but leaves behind it no lasting impression. Its effect ceases, when its impulse on the auditory nerve ceases;—an impulse strong enough to dispel from the mind all eating care (to use our great Poet's own expression) but in no sort to rouze or ruffle any of its faculties, save those only which attend truly devotional duty.”
This passage agreed with some of the Doctor's peculiar notions. He felt the power of devotional music both in such preparatory strains as Mason has here described, and in the more exciting emotions of congregational psalmody. And being thus sensible of the religious uses which may be drawn from music, he was the more easily led to entertain certain speculations concerning its application in the treatment of diseases, as will be related hereafter.
