r, Semiramide, and all manner of marches, choruses, ballads,
and national airs. In fact, I really do like music, especially if
tuneful and melodious, in spite of Wagner's apothegm, but some
symphonies might be better if curtailed,--except only Schubert's,--but
then his best is the Unfinished, and so the shortest. In my youth I
learnt the double flageolet, and could play it fairly.

All this (wherein I am but the honest spokesman for many who do not like
to confess as much) is introductory in my authorial capacity to this
short poem, not long since pencilled in the concert-room and given to
Mr. Manns as soon as clearly written. I insert it here very much to give
pleasure to one who so continually ministers to the pleasure of
thousands; and I hope some day soon to greet him Sir August, as he well
deserves a knighthood.

_A Music Lesson._

"Marvellous orchestra! concert of heaven,
Mingling more notes than the musical seven,
Harmonious discords of treble and base
In strange combinations of guilt and of grace--
O whose is the ear that can hear you aright,
And note the dark providence mixt with the light?
Where, where is the eye that is swift to discern
This lesson in music the dull ear should learn,--
That all, from the seraphim harping on high
Down, down to the lowest, fit chords can supply
To the paean of praises in every tone,
With thunders and melodies circling the Throne!

"We are each a brief note in that wonderful hymn,
And to us its Oneness is hazy and dim;
We hear the few sounds from the viol we play,
But all the full chorus floats far and away:
Our poor little pipe of an instant is drown'd
In the glorious rush of that ocean of sound;
The player hears nothing beyond his own bars,
Whilst all that grand symphony reaches the stars:
Yet, though our piping seems but little worth
It adds to the Anthem Creation pours forth,
And, whether we know it or not, we can give
Not a note more or less in the life that we live.

"Ah me! we are nothing--or little at best--
But duty with greatness the least can invest:
One note on the flute or the trumpet may seem
A poor petty work for ambition's fond dream,--
But what if that note be a need-be to blend
And quicken the score from beginning to end?
To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides
With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides,