Time is then our final tribunal, the only adjuster of musical values who makes no errors in judgment. The individual judge gauges the merits of contemporaneous composers, guided by his or her personal impressions. Time gathers composite impressions made upon races of music-lovers during decades, and her verdicts, based upon these impressions, are final. We are sometimes nonplussed, and even rebellious, when the success of our favorite composer, or of some especially sympathetic piece of music, proves ephemeral, but the fittest always survives, and the fittest is the composer or work which, in addition to the indispensable technical and æsthetic qualities, is pervaded by the richest vein of altruistic individuality. If time be our final tribunal, then professional critics are the advocates who present the claims of artists at the bar of her court. These advocates differ widely in ability and in character. A few of them have great learning, acute perceptions, and honesty; they will advocate no cause that is prejudicial to the interests of art, our muse having, as it were, endowed them with a super-retainer. Such advocacy embodies the highest and best of which the limitations of individuality admit. From this ideal standard professional critics grade downward until they reach assertive, prejudiced, and sometimes malicious ignorance. In passing down the scale we first find capacity without the essential confidence in convictions (timid ability is always a weak factor in adjusting affairs, whether artistic or material), then honesty and good-will unsupported by capacity, then capacity biassed by prejudice or self-interest, and last and worst, the pettifogger. These classes show arrogance, and attract attention (temporarily) in inverse ratio to their abilities. If we scan the history of our tribunal, we find that the more assertive the advocate the smaller his sphere of influence. The great public is the jury in this court, and its decisions, although ultimately wise and just, are always so delayed by the babel of pleas that dins in its ears, that I feel justified in devoting a little space to these "moulders of opinion," and to facilitate my purpose will use a simile drawn from nature, which is less whimsical and more reliable than man.