No doubt some persons would like to ask--Should we have known all this, or any of it, about the significance of the "Cockaigne" music had there been no programmes? The answer is, Probably not. But the beauty of an artistic design illustrating a certain subject may often be perceived when one cannot make out what the subject is. In such a case the subject is not "all nonsense." It is the stimulating cause of the beautiful design, and it is very natural for those who find the design beautiful to like to know what it is all about. It is a mistake to think that a definite play of the imagination has nothing to do with musical composition. It has very much to do with it. The kind of music with no underlying play of fancy is only too familiar. The name "Cockaigne" occurs in some form in old English, French, Italian, and Spanish literature, meaning "the land of delights." The fancied connection with "Cockney" is of much later date. Henry S. Leigh's "Carols of Cockayne" (1869) shows the recognition of the word in the sense of "Cockneydom." There is said to be a connection between "Cockney" and the French "coquin," and if that is so the appropriation of "Cockaigne" as correlative of "Cockney" is justified by community of origin, all these words being derived from the stem of _coquere_ (to cook). No doubt "coquin" originally meant "cook's boy" or "loafer in a cook-shop," and "Cockney" at first meant something of the same sort. At the same time there hangs about the word "Cockaigne" a certain proverbial suggestiveness, derived from the time when it was used in the sense of "land of delights," the etymology being forgotten. It thus has a peculiar appropriateness as the title of Dr. Elgar's genial and largely humoristic tone-picture. [Sidenote: ="The Dream of Gerontius," Birmingham Festival.= _October 3, 1900_]