public opinion would declare him a fit companion for the lunatics of whose interests he has been made the official guardian. Society felt some surprise as well as gratification when Sir Roundell Palmer recently published his 'Book of Praise;' but if the Attorney General, instead of printing his select hymns had seen fit to exemplify their beauties with his own voice from the stall of a church-singer, the piety of his conduct would have scarcely reconciled Lord Palmerston to its dangerous eccentricity. Amongst Elizabethan lawyers, Chief Justice Dyer was by no means singular for his love of music, though Whetstone's lines have given exceptional celebrity to his melodious proficiency:-- "For publique good, when care had cloid his minde, The only joye, for to repose his sprights, Was musique sweet, which showd him well inclind; For he doth in musique much delight, A conscience hath disposed to do most right: The reason is, her sound within our eare, A sympathie of heaven we thinke we heare." Like James Dyer, Francis Bacon found music a pleasant and salutary pastime, when he was fatigued by the noisy contentions of legal practice or by strenuous application to philosophic pursuits. A perfect master of the science of melody, Lord Bacon explained its laws with a clearness which has satisfied competent judges that he was familiar with the practice as well as the theories of harmony; but few passages of his works display more agreeably his personal delight and satisfaction in musical exercise and investigation than that section of the 'Natural History,' wherein he says, "And besides I practice as I do advise; which is, after long inquiry of things immersed in matter, to interpose some subject which is immateriate or less materiate; such as this of sounds: to the end that the intellect may be rectified and become not partial."