Note 9 — Chapter VII

"Since I have been here," he wrote in January, 1887, from Oban, where he had built a church and established a choir of men and boys for the daily celebration of the Liturgy, "I have been attending choir myself very regularly. I have no natural musical gifts at all, as you (being musical yourself) are well aware; but I think it better to put on a surplice when here, as it shows fellow-feeling." The Emperor Charlemagne, we are told, presided regularly over the choir in his private chapel; but beyond the fact that he coughed or sneezed (sternutabat) when he wished the lessons to stop, we do not hear of his taking any audible part in the service. Probably both he and Lord Bute, having instituted a choir to do the singing, thought it best themselves to follow the injunction which is, or was, posted up in the ante-chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, bidding visitors "join in the service silently."