from the time of the Culdee establishments of the sixth century, when 'Iona was the Rome of the north,' down to the _Covenanter's Lament_, and the Jacobite songs of the last century. Since these days, the spirit that invented and handed down popular song has passed away with the national and clannish feuds which gave rise to the gathering song and the lament. The age of peace has been heralded in by the songs of Burns and Lady Nairne, the authoress of _The Land o' the Leal_, who has done much to restore the taste for our beautiful old melodies, by wedding them to pure and appropriate verse.[2] In such pursuits, Mainzer--by this time dubbed doctor by a German university--passed five years very pleasantly, but, in a worldly point of view, very unprofitably. He had failed on first coming to Edinburgh in obtaining the musical chair, which seemed so appropriate a niche for him; and however reluctant to leave his favourite normal classes and his adopted home, still when he looked to the future, he was compelled to think of leaving Edinburgh--for the German proverb still held true: 'Kunst geht nach brod;' and if man cannot live by bread _alone_, neither can the artist live _without_ bread! At this juncture, the Chevalier Neukomm, of European celebrity as a composer and organist, and a valued friend of Dr Mainzer, came to Edinburgh to inspect his friend's normal classes. He was so much delighted with them, and considered Dr Mainzer so little appreciated by the general public, that he persuaded him to try Manchester as his future field of exertion. In the autumn of 1848, accordingly, Neukomm introduced Mainzer to the leading men of that city, who received him so cordially, that he at once took his proper position, and entered on a career both useful and profitable, and which continued to be increasingly successful, until at Christmas 1850, he was laid aside by ill-health. Over-exertion had brought on a complication of diseases, to which he was a martyr for ten months, and which terminated fatally on the 10th November 1851. During that long period of intense suffering, his active mind was never clouded nor repining, and at every interval of comparative ease, he read or listened to reading with avidity. During the first months of his illness, he superintended the publication of a new musical work, called _The Orpheon_, two numbers of which appeared; and his last exertion in this way was arranging two songs: _The Sigh_ of Charles Swain, and Longfellow's _Footsteps of Angels_, adapted to Weber's last song. Prophetic requiems both!