e of comfort and an
assistant in labour even to the very meanest.

The heroes of ancient Greece were ambitious to excel in music. In armies
music has always been cultivated as a source of pleasure, a principle of
regular motion, and an incentive to valour and enthusiasm.

And there is this in music, that it is suited to please all the
varieties of the human mind. The illiterate and the learned, the
thoughtless and the giddy, the phlegmatic and the sanguine, all confess
themselves to be its votaries. It is a source of the purest mental
enjoyment, and may be obtained by all. It is suited to all classes, and
never ceases to please all.

Many of you, I am sure, are familiar with what Shakespeare says:--

"Nought is so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted."

You recollect, too, what Lord Byron has so pathetically sung:--

"My soul is dark--oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear,
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.

"If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again;
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'T will flow, and cease to burn my brain.

"But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first,
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst.

"For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless sorrow long;
And now 't is doomed to know the worst,
And break at once, or yield to song."

All, however, do not agree with Byron and Shakespeare. Charles Lamb
says:--

"Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites.--For my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.
Cannot a man live free and easy
Without admiring Pergolesi?
Or through the earth with comfort go,
That never heard of Doctor Blow?
I hardly have;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,
Like other people, if you watch it,
And know no more of stave or crotchet
Than did the primitive Peruvians,
Or those old ante queer diluvians,
That live