teaching his singers to read at sight, for, as she knew, contrapuntal
music cannot be sung except by singers who can sing unaccompanied. The
trebles and the altos were of course the great difficulty; the boys
often burst into tears; they said they preferred to die rather than
endure his discipline. He was often sorry for them, for he knew that the
perfect singing of this contrapuntal music was almost impossible except
by _castrati_. But he was able to communicate his enthusiasm; he told
them stories of how the ancient choirs used to sing Palestrina's masses
without a rehearsal, how the ancient choirs used to compete one against
the other, singing music they had never seen against men in the opposite
organ loft whom they did not even know. He was full of such stories;
they served to fire the boys' enthusiasm, and to change dislike into an
inspiration. He had hypnotised them into a love of Palestrina, and when
they went home their parents had told him that the boys were always
talking about the ancient music, and that they sat up at night reading
motets. He had told them that they would abandon all foolish pastimes
for Palestrina, and they had in a measure; instead of batting and
bowling, their ambition became sight singing. Once a spirit of emulation
is inspired, great things are accomplished. There had been some
beautiful singing at St. Joseph's. Three months ago he believed that his
choir would have compared with some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr.
Innes told an instructive story of how he had lost a most extraordinary
treble, the best he had ever had. No, he had not lost his voice; a
casual word had done the mischief. The boy had happened to tell his
mother that Mr. Innes had said that he would give up cricket for
Palestrina, and she, being a fool, had laughed at him. Her laughter had
ruined the boy; he had refused to sing any more; he had become a
dissipated young rascal, up to every mischief. Unfortunately, before he
left he had influenced other boys; many had to be sent away as useless;
and it was only now that his choir was beginning to recover from this
egregious calamity. But though the difficulty of the trebles and the
altos was always the difficulty of his choir, it no longer seemed
insuperable. With the large amount of money at his disposal, he could
afford to pay almost any amount of money for a good treble or alto, so
every boy in London who showed signs of a voice was brought to him. But
in three or fo