This lowering tendency towards the low church pitch, and the final adoption of the latter as a general mean pitch throughout the 18th century, was no doubt influenced by the introduction of the violin, which would not bear the high tension to which the lutes and viols had been strained.
It arose incidentally out of a Conference Version, between the High Church and the Low Church parties convened by James I.
Under Elizabeth's succession he returned to England, and made earnest efforts to secure what would now be called a low-church settlement of religion.
The "black gown," considered wrongly as the ensign of Low Church views, survives in comparatively few of even "evangelical" churches; it is still, however, the custom for preachers of university sermons to wear the gown of their degree.
His attitude towards Essays and Reviews in 1861, against which he wrote an article in the Quarterly, won him the special gratitude of the Low Church party, and latterly he enjoyed the full confidence and esteem of all except the extreme men of either side and party.
