sibility in respect of the rights of conscience is the note above
all others that we have to strike in our nation's life to-day.
[Applause.]

Gentlemen, in the old country, among others, I have looked at the
monument of your noble old Dutch Admiral, Tromp, and there it says,
"Unconquered by the English, he ceased to triumph only when he ceased to
live," and I take these words, the epitaph of the old hero, not indeed
as the epitaph of Dutch influence--that will never die--but as the ideal
of Dutch character in this country in the years to come. Let it cease to
triumph only when it ceases to live; let it seek to lead onward and
upward to a diviner freedom this country, whose history is the evolution
of the great God-given idea--civil and religious liberty. [Applause.]

ALEXANDER C. MACKENZIE

MUSIC

[Speech of Sir Alexander C. Mackenzie at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 4, 1895. The toast to "Music," to which Sir
Alexander C. Mackenzie responded, was coupled with that of the "Drama"
for which Arthur W. Pinero spoke. Sir John Millais, who proposed the
toast, said: "I have already spoken for both Music and the Drama with
my brush. I have painted Sterndale Bennett, Arthur Sullivan, Irving,
and Hare."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--I
am aware that there are some of my most distinguished colleagues now
present whose claims to the honor of replying to your amiable words far
exceed my own. But I also know that they will not grudge me that
distinction and none of them would appreciate it more than myself, whom
you have elected to mention in connection with your toast. I only hope
that my companion, the brilliant representative of the Drama, may be
inclined to forgive me for taking precedence of him, for his art had
already attained a state of perfection while ours was still lisping on a
feeble tibia to the ill-balanced accompaniment of some more sonorous
instrument of percussion. It was all we had to offer at the time, but I
am sure that since then we have steadily improved. But even then we were
accustomed to ring up the curtain, and so I look upon myself as a mere
overture or prelude to the good thing, the word-painting, which will
follow. ["Hear! Hear!"] Let me assure him that the composer knows no
greater delight than when he is called upon to combine his art with that
of the dramatic author, even should our most divinely-inspired moments
be bu