Kelley once wrote music for an adaptation of "Prometheus Bound," made by the late George Parsons Lathrop for that ill-starred experiment, the Theatre of Arts and Letters. The same thoroughness of research that gave Kelley such a command of Chinese theories equipped him in what knowledge we have of Greek and the other ancient music. He has delivered a course of lectures on these subjects, and this learning was put to good and public use in his share in the staging of the novel "Ben Hur." His music had a vital part in carrying the play over the thin ice of sacrilege; it was so reverent and so appealing that the scrubwomen in the theatre were actually moved to tears during its rehearsal, and it gave the scene of the miraculous cure of the lepers a dignity that saved it from either ridicule or reproach. In the first act there is a suggestion of the slow, soft march of a caravan across the sand, the eleven-toned Greek and Egyptian scale being used. In the tent of the Sheik, an old Arabian scale is employed. In the elaborate ballets and revels in the "Grove of Daphne" the use of Greek scales, Greek progressions (such as descending parallel fourths long forbidden by the doctors of our era), a trimetrical grouping of measures (instead of our customary fourfold basis), and a suggestion of Hellenic instruments,--all this lore has not robbed the scene in any sense of an irresistible brilliance and spontaneity. The weaving of Arachne's web is pictured with especial power. Greek traditions have, of course, been used only for occasional impressionisms, and not as manacles. Elaborately colored modern instrumentation and all the established devices from canon up are employed. A piano transcription of part of the music is promised. The "Song of Iras" has been published. It is full of home-sickness, and the accompaniment (not used in the production) is a wonderwork of color. [Music: Tottering above In her highest noon The enamoured moon blushes with love While to listen The red levin With the rapid pleiads even Which were seven Pauses in heaven! Pauses in heaven! And they say the starry choir And the other listening things, That Israfel's fire is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings Of those unusual strings. By permission. FRAGMENT OF "ISRAFEL," BY EDGAR S. KELLEY.]