branch to those most willing to take it. Quantities of such work were accepted by me, until I became accomplished in notation, and was honored with the gratuitous custom of a respectable patron of the choir.
After the reading of the psalm or hymn on Sundays, when he rose in his place, enunciating audibly the name of the tune to be sung, giving the key-tone through the pitch-pipe, raising high his very white hand to beat the time, and scrutinizing every division of his forces with the eye of a commander, I thought him beautiful. The taste of the congregation was decidedly for that plain, slow music in which the devotion of their fathers had clothed itself, and "wherein the majesty of buried Denmark did sometime march." Though he taught this extremely well, he had an innate love for those brisk fugues, where one part leads off, and the rest follow with a sort of belligerent spirit. In these he occasionally indulged, thinking, probably, that the ancient prejudice had better be dismissed, or would be more honored in "the breach than the observance."
Acting on this principle, he one Sabbath morning gave out a tune of the most decidedly lively and stirring character, which we had taken great pains in practising. Its allegro, altissimo opening,
"Raise your triumphant songs
To an immortal tune,"
