If this be true, and I doubt not that most thinking people will agree, the present state of things is unceasingly working towards making the idea impossible of realisation. It must be borne in mind that there are hundreds, even thousands, of students taught by perhaps three masters of different nationalities, leaving our schools yearly, and who consequently spread broad-cast the mixed impressions they have received. Not only is the influence undesirable, but this constant augmentation of the already congested state of the profession makes it more and more difficult for the young native to earn a living wage, and compels him to direct his thoughts and energies rather to this end than the development of his artistic capabilities. The more one thinks on this practical point, the more serious it seems. That it has not escaped the attention of the resident foreign musicians is shewn by an illuminating story told in a pamphlet published a little while since, in which one of them advises young Englishmen to _['e]migr[^a]te_ (emigrate)! To properly explain the attitude in the past, of the people generally, towards music and musicians, it is necessary to go back some centuries and examine the causes which led up to it. One of the first effects of the wave of Puritanism which swept over the country after the Reformation, was a contempt for everything that savoured of frivolity, and to the minds of the Puritans, the practice of music was regarded more as a prostitution of mental effort than a calling which could be treated as serious or even moral. Its use was banished from the churches, and it is recorded of Cromwell that on one occasion he entered a cathedral with a squad of soldiers while a service was being held, and ordered the clergy to "stop this fooling." Although this extreme state of affairs was not of long duration, it lasted long enough to instil into the very marrow and bones of the population a prejudice that centuries have not been able to altogether eradicate. A reaction was, however, inevitable, and with the Restoration it came, accompanied, unhappily, by excesses that rendered the results almost nugatory. After a period, during which the genius of Purcell shed an undying glory on English music, the people, having finally rid the country of the Stuart dynasty, settled down to a period if of less fanaticism, a not less fatal indifference to and contempt for musical art. It was left to the scornful genius of Dean Swift to express this feeling in words at once typical of him, and unforgettable. At the time he wrote them, a foreign Court had attracted a large number of musicians from the Continent, amongst whom was Handel.