nale, which is choral
throughout, and gives all the pleasant details of Christmas cheer,--the
feast in the vaulted hall, the baron of beef, the boar with the lemon in
his jaw, the pudding, "gem of all the feast," the generous wassail, and
the mistletoe bough with its warning to maids. In delightfully
picturesque old English music the joyous scene comes to an end:--

"Varied sports the evening close,
Dancers form in busy rows:
Hoodwink'd lovers roam about,
Hope to find the right one out,
And when they fail how merry is the shout!
Round yon flickering flame of blue
Urchins sit, an anxious crew;
Dainties rich the bold invite,
While from the fire the timid shrink with fright.
Welcome all, welcome all.
'Tis merry now in the vaulted hall,
The mistletoe is overhead,
The holly flaunts its berries red,
The wassail-bowl goes gayly round;
Our mirth awakes the echoes sound,
All eyes are bright, all hearts are gay;
Thus ends our Christmas day."

MACKENZIE.

Alexander C. Mackenzie, one of the very few successful Scotch composers,
was born at Edinburgh, in 1847. His father was a musician, and
recognizing his son's talent, sent him to Germany at the age of ten. He
began his studies with Ulrich Eduard Stein at Schwartzburg-Sondershausen,
and four years later entered the ducal orchestra as violinist. He
remained there until 1862, when he went to England to study the violin
with M. Sainton. In the same year he was elected king's scholar of the
Royal Academy of Music. Three years later he returned to Edinburgh and
established himself as a piano-teacher. The main work of his life,
however, has been composition, and to this he has devoted himself with
assiduity and remarkable success. Grove catalogues among his works:
"Cervantes," an overture for orchestra; a scherzo, for ditto; overture to
a comedy; a string quintet, and many other pieces in MS.; piano-forte
quartet in B., op. 11; Trois Morceaux pour Piano, op. 15; two songs, op.
12; besides songs, part-songs, anthems, and pieces for the piano. This
catalogue can now be increased by four of the most important works he has
produced: a Scotch Rhapsody, introduced into this country by the Theodore
Thomas orchestra; the oratorio "Rose of Sharon" (1884); an opera, "The
Troubadour" (1885), and the cantata, "The Story of Sayid" (1886), which
forms the subject of the subjoined sketch.