TALLIS'S SERVICE.
Tars venerable and interesting work was again presented, in its full di- mensions and original power, to a crowded audience at Westminster Abbey, on Wednesday morning; the Choir being augmented to about forty voices, by the addition of several professional singers, who willingly lent their aid to the good work.
Of the history and the merits of this composition we have spoken on a former occasion, and we shall gladly avail ourselves of the few oppor- tunities that will remain to renew the gratification which its perform- ance affords. The destructive and desolating effects of the Bishop of LONDON'S Bill will only become apparent by degrees, and one of them will be to render the performance of this Service impossible. His avowed design is not merely to reduce the number cf Minor Canons to two, (that is, to deprive every Choir of its right arm,) but to destroy the race of musically-educated priests altogether. "It is not our de- sign," he said, "to make singing part of a Minor Canon's duty." Now, in order to the performance of Temas's Service, it is necessary that the priest be not only a singer, but a good singer. Every note that he chants is prescribed and set down, and any deviation from the text would be fatal to the performance. He leads the voices from key to key, and it requires no ordinary steadiness and nerve to do so with correctness. Even now there is bat one Minor Canon in the Abbey competent to the duty ; and when Mr. LUPTON shall be gathered to his fathers, the walls of the Abbey will no longer reecho Terass's sublime responses.
We mention this as one of the necessary results of this mischievous device to obtain power and patronage—this scheme of wholesale plunder and devastation, which Parliament has legalized.
Among other hearers, we saw Sir GEORGE CLERK—BO mean judge of the value of what he heard ; and we would fain hope that his attention and that of the other members of her Majesty's Conservative Govern- ment may be drawn to this subject of national interest, and that, before it be too late, the error of the late Ministers and the late Parliament may be corrected, and the Cathedral Music of England saved from destruction.
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