Page:The Early English Organ Builders and their work.djvu/30

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18
The Early English

nificent one at St. Sepulchre's, Newgate Street!"[1]

Now I think that this lecture on the Early History of the Organ, is not without its use, if it only clears up some of these important points, about which clever and even scientific men are daily making mistakes. The slightest investigation into the progress of the science of music would alone aid us materially in drawing our conclusions, even without the valuable assistance of archæology; but when both are combined, we feel that we are treading on sure ground.

The organ described by Wulstan was a most primitive instrument, without registers or stops, of any kind, and unprovided with a key-board. Its compass is uncertain, but the only chromatic note it possessed was the B flat It had a set of rods or levers, in connection with the pipes; and the performance of the organ-

  1. A paper on the organ, printed in the Transactions of the British Archæological Association, 1846, p. 289.