HUBANUS. "Because I heard you but just now rehearsing such a sorrowful, in fact, so lugubrious, a morceau-an Offertory piece, I presume, for a Requiem Mass-that I supposed you were getting up the music for some such occasion."

(The monks regard the aged stranger with no little surprise, mingled with curiosity.)

GREGORIUS. "We must have made indeed sad work of it in our rehearsing. Worthy Hubanus, it was the Gaudeamus you heard.”

HUBANUS. "The Gaudeamus, eh? (Aside. I don't remember seeing that in Ditson's catalogue. I wonder what it is. To Gregorius.) Would you mind repeating it once more?"

GREGORIUS. "With pleasure. Sing, my brothers." (They sing the whole Introit.)

HUBANUS. "Ah! fine; quite solemn! A Gregorian chant, I perceive. A very plaintive movement. The finale has an exceedingly mournful effect. In D minor, is it not? Still, for a Requiem Offertory I think Rossini's Pro Peccatis, or Gounod's Ave Maria, or 'Angels ever Bright and Fair,' for a change, would please the congregation better."

ALL THE MONKS. "Plaintive! Our Gaudeamus mournful! Calls an Introit an Offertory piece! Like Requiem Offertory indeed! An Ave Maria for that too! What does he mean by D minor? (Blessing themselves.) Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!"

HUBANUS. "Oh! beg pardon. That is an Introit, is it? Indeed! But, as I said, I have the honor to be born at a much later date than yourselves, and we don't bother ourselves with singing those things in my day and country. We bring out the finest music, however, in

our choir of the Church of S. Botolph, in the United States, that you can hear. I'm the organist and director."

GREGORIUS. "Not sing the Introit! Why, good domne Hubanus, our grand and joyous festiva! on the morrow would be robbed of one of its chief features if we failed to sing the Gaudeamus-I mean the Gaudeamus that you have just heard."

HUBANUS. "De gustibus non est disputandum.' Hem! excuse my indulging in the classics; those old Latin fellows say a good deal in a few words, you know. But you don't seriously mean to say that such monotonous stuff-excuse my plain speaking on your plain singing-is fit for a joyous festival? As my friend, Dr., says in his late paper on Church Music,'' to hear Gregorian chant for a long time, and nothing else, becomes extremely monotonous, and burdens the ear with a dull weight of sound not always tolerable.' He says, moreover, that this is admitted by all who in seminaries and monasteries have been most accustomed to hear it.'"

GREGORIUS. "Your learned friend did not seek our judgment, I assure you, and I am at a loss to know who could have made so silly an admission to him."

HUBANUS. "But do you not 'resort to every device,' as he says again, to escape its monotony on festival days, by harmonies on the chant which are out of all keeping with it,' and so forth?"

GREGORIUS." We do not, I trust, What little harmony we sing is in strict keeping with the mode of the chant; and as to escaping anything, we know the rubrics, domne Hubanus, and respect them, and, what is more, we observe them."

HUBANUS. "On that score I have the advantage of you; for it doesn't require much knowledge of what you call rubrics to bring out a Mass and grand Vespers with us. However, this question of plain chant is settled long ago. It ought to have been settled long before you were born. For, as Dr. continues in his paper, 'No one will deny the appropriateness and impressiveness of plain chant on certain solemn occasions, especially those of sorrow; but it is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph.' Ah! Brother Gregorius, you should have been born later."

GREGORIUS. "Then we monks, and the generations of the faithful throughout the world, have for the past thousand years been shut out from the feelings of Christian joy and triumph, have we? Verily, either we or you can have known very little of one or of the other, as the observation of your learned doctor may happen to be true or not. Did the church put a lie into the mouths of her cantors when she bade them sing, Repleatur os meum laude tua, alleluia; ut possim cantare, alleluia; gaudebunt labia mea, dum cantavero tibi, alleluia, alleluia '? "'*

HUBANUS. "You are a trifle sarcastic, Brother Gregorius; but I willingly pardon it, for I'm a plainspoken man myself, and call a spade a spade. Besides, you know, you can always fall back on the De gustibus a quotation I often find very convenient; but I warrant me your prima donna doesn't find much satisfaction in exhibiting her fine soprano on your dull chant,

which you must confess, with Dr. -, 'is of limited, very limited, range,' and in my opinion as poor in expression as a kettle-drum."

GREGORIUS. "I crave your pardon, worthy sir. You are a stranger and quite aged-"

HUBANUS (interrupting). "Eighteen hundred and seventy-four."

GREGORIUS (continuing) -" as the length and whiteness of your beard proclaim, while we have only the experience of one thousand years, the lessons of the church, and the taste as well as the examples of the saints to profit by; but we must confess that of a prima donna we have never yet heard."

ALL THE MONKS. (very decidedly). "Never!"

HUBANUS. "Never heard of a prima donna! Why, when were you born? I mean, of course, the chief lady soprano who sings in the choir."

(Here all the monk's burst out laughing.) GREGORIUS (having got his breath). 'Come, come, my ancient stranger, that explains all. We knew you must be 'chaffing' us, from the very first, with your mournful Gaudeamus' and your never singing Introits or obeying the rubrics and the rest. Ha! ha! Truly, a chief lady in the choir '-prima donna, I think you named such a mythical personage—was only needed to cap the climax of your excellent joke."

6

HUBANUS. "Joke! I'm not joking at all. We have ladies in our choir-(aside) and it's no joke to manage them either-(to Gregorius) and pay them good salaries, as you must; for without that, you know, you never can have good music."

(Here the laughing of the monks suddenly subsided, followed by loud and angry whispers, of which the

word "heretic" was unmistakably heard. Brother Gregorius interposed.) "Judge not too hastily, good brothers. True, no church which oweth obedience to our Holy Father, the Pope, and which hath a right therefore to call itself Catholic, did ever yet permit women to sing in church choirs; but what she might have done in this matter in the country from which this aged stranger comes-be it ever so contrary to all the rubrics and traditions known unto us-we will the better learn from his own lips. Women, then, good domne Hubanus, do sing in the choir in the Catholic churches of your strange land, standing, perchance, beside the mensingers?"

HUBANUS. Where else would they stand? You see we put the sopranos and tenors on one side, and the altos and basses on the other."

GREGORIUS (scratching his shaven crown in great perplexity). "We have yet to learn many wonderful things! Canst tell me, worthy Hubanus, how comes it? Does your learned friend, Dr. —, speak of this matter in his celebrated 'paper'? Doubtless he mentions some decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites which hath allowed this-this (another scratch) unheard-of novelty?"

HUBANUS. "I cannot remember that he made any allusion to it. In fact, I fancy that he would. rather not, and I am glad he didn't. But where's the use of making a fuss over it? Haven't women got voices as well as men, and what did the Lord give them voices for, if he did not intend them for use?"

GREGORIUS. "In the choir ?" HUBANUS. "In the choir, or out of the choir, what's the difference?"

GREGORIUS. "Do the rubrics allow it?"

HUBANUS. "Ma foi! I do not know. (Aside.) I hope they do, if old fogies like you are going to stir up that question. (To Gregorius.) No lady-singers! If that were to happen, my occupation, as well as theirs, would be like Othello'sgone. For hark you, Brother Gregorius, although I know but little of your old-fashioned, barbarous chant-can't read a note of it, to tell the truth-if women-singers are banished from the choir, music goes with them. The music I like Fequires the female voice. I wouldn't waste my time with a parcel of boys and on such music as they can sing."

GREGORIUS. "What music is this of which you speak so often? Hath the church adopted a new style of melody which is not chant?"

HUBANUS. "No, not adopted precisely, but there is a new musiceverybody knows it-written by Mozart, Haydn, Mercadante, Peters, and several others, which organists and choirs make use of in our day. Some prefer one, some another, according to taste. 'De gustibus,' you know."

GREGORIUS. "Yet tell me for here the strangeness of your news almost surpasses belief-how dare the organists and choirs make use of any melody in accompanying the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and absolving the Divine Office which has not been adopted, or at least distinctly sanctioned, by holy church, to whom it appertains to dispose the ordering even of the most minute rubric in these important matters concerning the due praise of God and the sure edification of the people?"

HUBANUS. "All I can say is, we do it. It is tolerated in some places, and my friend in his paper quotes some Instructions' which the

cardinal vicar in Rome issued to his own clergy to prove the toleration; but, to my thinking, they sound very much like the careful mother's permission to her boy who asked leave to learn to swim'Certainly, my child, but don't you never go near the water, leastways any water that is over your ankles.'"

GREGORIUS. “I think I understand, for I have heard our good father, the abbot, say that he who would be well carried must not drive with too stiff a rein '; and my holy novice-master, Father Ambrose-to whose soul may God grant rest! did oft chide my hasty judgment upon my fellow-novices, saying in his sweet way, and after the manner of his wise speech, 'Thou wouldst reform monks, good Brother Gregorius, before they are formed. All they need is a little instruction.' At present every one is well pleased with your music ?"

HUBANUS. "Oh! that is quite another question. Dr. himself himself does not seem to think so, for he says in his paper: 'In consequence of the failure of modern composers to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, though their music has been introduced into our churches and given every chance of trial, complaints against it are heard on every side. We grumble about it in our conversations; we write against its excesses in the public journals; bishops complain of it in pastoral letters; provincial councils are forced to issue decrees about it; the Sovereign Pontiffs themselves not unfrequently raise their voices, sometimes in warning, sometimes in threats in a word, the evil seems to have attracted a good deal of attention.'"

ALL THE MONKS. Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!"

GREGORIUS. "His account of your music-which you seem, nevertheless, to prize so much more highly than our dear holy chant, which hath the undoubted sanction of the church-gives pretty plain evidence that the church hath not adopted it in any wise. It rather suggests the thought that she would gladly be rid of it altogether, abstaining, however, like Father Ambrose, from reforming musicians before they are formed, and resolving, as he did often pleasantly say, to my comfort, 'Thou shalt see, Brother Gregorius, that I shall make no change in our holy Rule."

HUBANUS. One would think you were born later, after all; for it would appear that our Holy Father, Pius the Ninth-pity you haven't lived to know him, Brother Gregorius, for he is the dearest pope that has ruled the church since the days of S. Peter-is in the van among the leaders of the 'Gregorian movement,' since a little while ago he made a decree that the Gregorian chant should be taught in all the ecclesiastical schools of the states of the church, to the exclusion of every other kind of music—“ Cantus Gregorianus, omni alio rejecto, tradetur.' You see he wishes to get the Roman priests educated up to it-Rome rules the world-and the thing is done. 'Othello's occupation is gone! But how in the world we shall ever get up a Christmas or an Easter Mass that is fit to listen to when that day comes is more than I can tell."

GREGORIUS. "Despair not, good Hubanus. Remain with us past the morrow, and thou shalt hear a holy Mass and solemn Vespers which will warm the cockles of thy heart,

chanted in strains of melody that belie neither the sentences of joyful praise which are uttered nor the exuitation which doth lift the hearts of the brethren to heaven, and fill the festival hours with a divine gladness. (To the monks.) Brothers, let us rehearse the Gloria in Excelsis."

As the curtains of our memory dropped upon the scene we have just been present at, our eyes caught sight again of the sentence quoted by Prof. Hubanus: "In consequence of the failure of modern composers to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion "—which failure is so utter that, in the judgment of the same writer, he "thinks it no exaggeration to say that, if all their compositions, except a very few, were burned, or should other wise perish, the church would suffer no loss."

But what of the figured musical compositions of those musicians who may in our time be honored with the title of "ancient," such as Palestrina and his imitators? The music of this style forms, we are told, the staple of what is commonly heard in S. Peter's. The writer of the article we allude to evidently believes any attempt to make such music popular would be no less a failure. The intricacy of the style, the exceeding difficulties attendant upon its artistic execution, and its restricted vocal character, are "fatal" objections.

but intended also to be understood as asserting that the cause of this failure lay chiefly in the melodious form of such music-the necessary result of a tonality essentially sensuous, which renders it, despite every effort of the artist, intrinsically unsuitable for the expression of the "prayer of the church." That there is prayerful music we do not deny, but it will never obtain any more positive sanction from the church than she gives to the hundred and one sentimental "prayers" and turgid "litanies" which fill the pages of our "largest books of devotion" ad nauseam, and are equally supposed by the uneducated Catholic and the ignorant Protestant to be the masterpieces of Catholic musical and liturgical art.

We did not think it necessary, writing as we did for a special class of readers, to explain the distinguishing characteristics of the church's "prayer," being, as our learned friend says, fourfold-latreutic, impetratory, propitiatory, and eucharistic. To us the church was not wanting in wisdom in the adoption alone of plain chant to express her divine prayer, whether it happen to be latreutic, impetratory, propitiatory, or eucha ristic. She never made any distinction that we know of. But our learned friend, while he cannot help but admit that for the purposes of adoration, propitiation, and supplication it is not only all that could be desired, but is also better than any other melody, denies, with an ipse dixit, its capability of expressing praise and thanksgiving. Argument does not seem to be worth seeking. "Plain chant," he says, "is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feel