It is sad to think how some of our distinguished musical composers have had to struggle with poverty, when with a proper attention to business matters they might easily have been men of independent means. True, to be what is called a practical man requires a talent very different from that required by an artist; and an inferior artist may be,--nay, often is a far more practical man than a superior artist. But a superior artist is not necessarily devoid of the qualifications which constitute a clever man of business. To maintain that a highly gifted musical composer must needs be deficient in common sense as regards money transactions would be as unwarrantable as to assert that a musician who understands how to use the art as a milch-cow must necessarily be a bad musician. His love for the art, and his desire to achieve something great, not unfrequently animates the true artist to disregard, or even to sacrifice for its sake, his property, health, and other advantages which the practical man regards as the real happiness of life. Whatever the composer produces less as a labour of love than for gain, by command, according to a plan prescribed to him, and under similar circumstances, is generally not the best he is capable of accomplishing. An artist must be allowed to create unfettered the work with which he feels the greatest inclination to occupy himself. But, if he possesses no property, he may starve before his work is finished. There are some painful instances on record of starving musical composers, who, with their admirable talents, might have saved themselves and others much trouble, if only they had thought it worth their while to be a little more practical. Composers generally receive their worst pay for their best works. Their best works are generally those which made them celebrated; and when they have become celebrated, they are often well paid for insignificant or mediocre productions.