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Only the musical Gregorians of the newsboys chanting the evening's extras from corner to corner of the streets rose into the air from time to time. She was once more alone. Was she to fail again? Was she to be set aside once more, as so often heretofore set aside, flouted, ignored, forgotten? "If you love me," she had said. And this was to be the supreme test.
This put a corona on the discussion; and the rest of the dinner passed off pleasantly indeed, but not very intellectually. After dinner it occurred to them that the subject of Gregorians and Gothic had been left in the lurch. "How in the world did we get off it?" asked Charles.
They could not use what was not yet invented. They sang Gregorians because they had not Palestrina." "A paradox, a paradox!" cried Bateman. "Surely there is a close connexion," answered Campbell, "between the rise and nature of the basilica and of Gregorian unison. Both existed before Christianity; both are of Pagan origin; both were afterwards consecrated to the service of the Church."
A Tyrolese anthem having been sung by some invisible voices, in which jodels leapt up and smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged Capuchin took his stand in the pulpit, and having greeted the congregation, promised to explain to them the mystery and the advantage of the Holy Scapulary.
Nearly a century earlier, it is true, Short had fitted one of his Gregorians to a complicated system of circles in such a manner that, by moving a handle, it could be made to follow the revolution of the sky; but the arrangement did not obtain, nor did it deserve, general adoption.
"Certainly, Bateman, you must tolerate Pagan architecture, or you must in consistency exclude Pagan or Jewish Gregorians," said Campbell; "you must tolerate figured music, or reprobate tracery windows." "And which are you for," asked Bateman, "Gothic with Handel, or Roman with Gregorians?" "For both in their place," answered Campbell. "I exceedingly prefer Gothic architecture to classical.
"Far from it," answered Charles; "but let those who confine their music to Gregorians put up crucifixes in the highways. Each is the representative of a particular place or time." "That's what I say of our good friend's short coat and long cassock," said Campbell; "it is a confusion of different times, ancient and modern."
This kind of entertainment was entirely new to the natives, who heartily preferred it to their own dull music, resembling what are called, I believe, "Gregorians," by a bloated and Erastian establishment. So far, then, I may perchance trust that my efforts were not altogether vain, and the seed thus sown may, in one or two cases, have fallen on ground not absolutely stony. But, alas!
"Why, then, go to Rome for Gregorians?" said Campbell; "I suspect they are called after Gregory I. Bishop of Rome, whom Protestants consider the first specimen of Antichrist." "It's nothing to us what Protestants think," answered Bateman. "Don't let us quarrel about terms," said Campbell; "both you and I think that Rome has corrupted the faith, whether she is Antichrist or not.
We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the Gregorians." On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature was already marked.
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