remember that religion was its _raison d’être_—a wider development of music was absent. Thus, in asking ourselves if we have or have not a school of English music—taking “school” to mean the mould of music’s expression determined by the circumstances and men of the time—we must acknowledge that, though we doubtless have something of the sort, it is only in the slightest degree perceptible.—_Musical Opinion._ BOOTY IN WAR.—Charles, as soon as he had finished conquering Lorraine, gathered his host at Besançon, and marched to Granson on the Neuchâtel Lake. Here a garrison of 500 Swiss was betrayed to him; he hanged or drowned every man of them, including the monks who came as chaplains. Justly enraged, the Federation gathered its whole strength, and with 24,000 men fell upon Charles unawares and defeated him utterly. The booty was something fabulous; Burgundy, taking taxes from all the rich Netherland towns, was then the richest Power in Europe. The spoil was valued at a quarter of a million. You may calculate what that would be worth now. The big diamonds—one is now in the Pope’s tiara, another was long the glory of the French regalia—were among the valuables. The Duke’s throne was valued at 11,000 gulden; all his plate, his silver bedstead, his wonderfully illuminated prayer-book, were taken, besides 1,000,000 gulden in his treasure chest, 10,000 horses, and a proportionate quantity of all kinds of stores. No wonder the Swiss never recovered Granson; there were long and bitter quarrels about the division of the booty, and the coming in of so much wealth amongst a simple people demoralised them sadly, and led the way to their becoming the chief mercenaries of Europe.—_Good Words._