t faintly conveyed to the audience through the medium of
the--otherwise excellent but still metropolitan--under ground
orchestras at our disposal. My only regret is that none of us were
permitted to accompany the fascinating heroine of his latest work
through the play. Some correspondingly alluring music has doubtless been
lost to the world.

On the last occasion that the toast of Music was responded to in this
room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. I
fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the
oppressive weight of over-popularity--at least not to any very alarming
extent. [Cheers.] But I may permit myself to say that while the
popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious
that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very
familiarity which it undoubtedly enjoys subjects it more than any other
art to the fitful temper of fashion--to rash and hastily-formed
judgments--as well as to the humors of self-complacent guides whose
dicta all too frequently prove the dangerous possession of a very small
allowance of real knowledge.

"Academic" is, I believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark
those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that
music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy
art, or a mere nerve titillater. We are not, sir, by any means ashamed
to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a
genuine compliment--gratifying because, although perhaps unintentionally
it implies that we have acquired the possession of "that one thing"
which (as Wilhelm Meister was informed by the venerable Three) "no child
brings into the world with him,"--that is, "reverence"--reverence for
our great past as well as, I hope, a due estimation of the vigorous
activity of the present. So our sweet-natured muse smiles benignly upon
the impish gambols of the "new boy" who has the supreme advantage of not
having been to school, for any appreciable length of time at least, and
who seems to derive considerable satisfaction from his endeavors to
improve the education of those who have never left it. [Laughter.]

We are sometimes instructed that English Purcell (whose glorious memory
our musicians mean to honor in a few months), that German Bach ought to
be considerably touched up to suit the altered requirements of the day,
and that the rich hues of romantic Weber--nay, even of