flowing back, and a forehead white and broad
as a tenor should have. Wonder, too, how
from the huge, corpulent being full of flesh
and unctuous juices, should proceed that
unnatural tone, so womanish, so rich and fatty,
being no other than Glueboys, the chief
counter–tenor. Conjecture, too, what
prodigious, thoracial muscle must have those
able–bodied men who work their organs with
such rasping, gritty edge, that you would take
them for so many small saw–mills. They are
Burden, Silvertop, and Boldman by name.
Tough fellows that struggle hard with the
fine mellow organ tones that came rolling in
billows up the church and down again, drifting
onwards; the seraphic tenor and counter–
tenor swallowing them up, or bearing them to
the surface harmoniously. That organ right
over the porch—in a grey rookery of its own
where the organist sits—came from the hands
of Dutch Silbermann, a contemporary of the
second Earl of Beagles.

Melodious instrument! with pipes of gold
and silver, and every sweet–resounding metal.
How many Eastern gongs were melted into
them it would be hard now to say; but such
ripened and mellow tones went gushing from
them when the organist laid his fingers to
the keys, no man who had not heard could
scarcely conceive. That silver–pipe vegetation
went upwards in bunches, twisted together
and interlaced in wild luxuriance to be lost
overhead in the ancient woodwork. It was
tall Indian trees in a thick jungle, only with
long silver stems, and old oak palm–leaves up
above. It was the huge poop and lantern of
old ships of Spanish build, floating castles—
a similitude borne out to perfection when
our organist, warming to his work, made the
keys clatter; and there was heard from
within flapping, breaking sounds, as of ship's
blocks and cordage in a storm, with strange
heavings and swellings, and whistlings of
winds. It was fine to see how he rode that
musical whirlwind. With eyes kindling, with
fingers dancing a fierce giga upon the keys;
feet stamping furiously upon the pedals, as
working eternal treadles; hands clutching
savagely at stop–handles to the right or to
the left, with his whole soul and faculties
directing the rushing torrent; the tall, ill–
shapen, stooped organist does his work
bravely. Presently, there comes a lull; then
turning in his rookery, and leaning on his
elbow weary, he looks down from afar at
the white–robed canons, Seraphim, Glueboys,
Burden, Silvertop, and Boldman, chanting
away divinely, and dwindling down
as small as they chant. He sees, too,
from afar, the new dean sitting in his
roost, and presently thinks—as all the
parish thinks—what a pity an honest local
divine—Maydew, he was called—had been
passed over. Nay, he knows it had been
promised to the honest local divine, who was
strangely popular; but, as was well–known,
my Lord Beagles had stepped in; and, being
great with the bishop, had it given to a
particular friend of his own. Full of charity
and good works was this honest local divine,
and the good souls of the town had paid him
congratulatory visits. Mrs. Blushington—
worthy woman—whose gaudy bonnet any
one else in the rookery must have noted, had
already marked him down for one of her
offspring; and Mrs. Doctor Pipples had loose
notions of the same sort. Uninterested
parties, loving the man for his simple worth,
said it was a cruel thing; and our long lank
organist (who had the weight of many good
years on him besides), felt his thin cheeks
warming, and a sort of indignation at his
heart as he thought of his poor disappointed
friend. He knew well how many burdens
were on the small stipend the cathedral
furnished to him: an aged mother; sisters
unprovided for. Had it only not been promised
and given (the parish calling clamorously for
such appointment), it had not been so bitter;
but——

But here, the responses being now done,
the Seraphim and brethren far away below,
are borne down and swept away in the great
stream that comes pouring from the rookery.
It is the Anthem, For the Lord is a Great
God, which is lifted up on the voices of the
Seraphim and his companions, is quavered
by the strained throats of tenor–men, in
small defiance at great Dutch Silbermann in
the rookery, biding his time; but who
presently comes tramping down upon them all,
flooding them over, drowning them with his
deep pedal burr, thundering in bass utterance
that the Lord is a Great God; making all
the roosts and oaken seats quiver with the
deep tremor. This dies off again, and leaves
our tall thin organ–captain to turn round on
his elbow once more, and think what a
puffed, pompous, worldly–souled cleric the
new dean looks, swelling in his great egg–
shaped sleeves, gazing with metropolitan
contempt on the provincials about him. That is
poor disappointed Maydew, who has now the
trial on him of chanting prayers to his
fortunate superior opposite, which he does in a
low, gentle voice. The new dean hearkens
with curiosity; he knows of the man, his
expectations and failure; knows, too, of the
peculiar feelings of the people towards him,
and does not love him too much. But his
puffed metropolitan cheeks let no such secret
escape. Though, when our poor divine stumbles
and goes near to breaking down at the close,
something very like a sour smile comes upon
the metropolitan cheeks: which even he
who is afar off in the rookery, cannot help
noticing, and feels fire of anger within him.
But here Silbermann must be let loose again,
and roll his swelling, tumbling flood down
the aisles, to the minor canons, to Seraphim
and his brethren. Once more, For the Lord
is Great, led off in high quavering by
Seraphim and holy company, to be overborne
again in the great stalking, stately, rumbling