er and the peasant. I claim for music a variety of expression
which belongs to no other art, and therefore adapts it more than
any other art to produce that union of feeling which I much
desire to promote. Lastly, I claim for music the distinction
which is awarded to it by Addison--that it is the only sensuous
pleasure in which excess cannot be injurious. What, more,
gentlemen, can I say on behalf of the art for the promotion of
which we are to-day opening this institution--an institution
which I trust will give to music a new impulse, a glorious
future, and a national life? Before I quit this room a further
duty devolves on me--a most gratifying one, I admit. I am called
upon to announce a most gracious act by which the Queen has been
pleased to mark her interest in the opening of the Royal
College. Her Majesty authorises me to say that she proposes to
confer the honour of knighthood on Professor Macfarren and Dr.
Sullivan. If anything could add to my satisfaction in making
this statement it is this, that these honours are bestowed by
the advice of the Prime Minister, who has taken so kind an
interest in the promotion of the Royal College, and who could
have devised no better mode of celebrating its opening than by
recommending that honour should be done on this occasion to
music by conferring knighthood on men so celebrated in their art
as Professor Macfarren and Dr. Sullivan, and that honour should
be done to our college by awarding a like distinction to its
director, Dr. Grove, who, eminent in general literature, has
specially devoted himself to the preparation and publication of
a dictionary of music, and has earned our gratitude by the skill
and success with which he has worked in the difficult task of
organising the Royal College. I have only to add that the Prime
Minister (Mr. Gladstone) by his presence to-day proves that
neither the cares of State, nor the overwhelming press of
business by which he is surrounded, prevents him from giving
personal countenance to a national undertaking which, if I am
right in what I have said, is calculated to advance the
happiness and elevate the character of the English people."

The Royal College of Music, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1883, is
now one of the established institutions of the Empire. There lies before
us the Report of the Fi