D.XVIII."
_The Term "Organ-blower._"--In an old document preserved among the
archives of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, is an entry relative to
the celebrated composer and organist HENRY PURCELL, in which he is
styled "our _organ-blower_." What is the meaning of this term? It
certainly does not, in the present case, apply to the person whose
office it was to fill the organ with wind. Purcell, at the time the
entry was made, was in the zenith of his fame, and "organist to the
king." Possibly it may be the old term for an organist, as it will be
remembered that in the fifteenth century the organ was performed upon by
_blows_ from the fist.
At the coronation of James II., and also at that of George I., two of
the king's musicians walked in the procession, clad in scarlet mantles,
playing each on a sackbut, and another, drest in a similar manner,
playing on a double curtal, or bassoon. The "organ-_blower_" had also a
place in these two processions, having on him a short red coat, with a
badge on his left breast, viz. a nightingale of silver, gilt, sitting on
a sprig.
In a weekly paper, entitled the _Westminster Journal_, Dec. 4. 1742, is
a letter subscribed "Ralph Courtevil, _Organ-blower_, Essayist, and
Historiographer." This person was the organist of St. James's Church,
Piccadilly, and the author of the _Gazetteer_, a paper written in
defence of Sir Robert Walpole's administration. By the writers on the
opposite side he was stigmatized with the name of "Court-evil.
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