Thanks to the enterprise and spirit of the lovers of harmony, this is not seldom; concerts for the rich and concerts for the poor, for the hundreds and the “millions,” have risen up to meet the calls of humanity for heart-culture by other inspirations than may be got from alphabets and primers, or intellectual disquisitions. And, triennially, arrive the great epochs of the city’s glory, when she asserts her claims upon the world of music, to be classed high among the nursing mother of genius, and foster-parents of art. Then is the hour of triumph for the Black Friars’ solemn and grand old nave, when its roofs and pillars tremble at the thunders of the Messiah’s “Hallelujah,” and resound to the electrifying crash, uttering “Wonderful;” or when they echo the sweet melodies of Haydn, Mozart, and Spohr; the refined harmonies of a Mendellsohn’s “Elijah,” the magic strains of his “Loreley,” or reflect the wondrous landscape painting of the mystic Beethoven. Nor was the day a small one when its orchestra gave utterance to the outpourings of a genius cradled and nurtured in its bosom, whose work is acknowledged to be great and good, _albeit_ “a prophet” is not without honour save in his own country. And all praise be given as due to the generous help yielded to the son of the stranger as to the son of the soil. The world may yet live to be grateful to the city that in one year brought before it two such conceptions and creations as “Israel Restored” and “Jerusalem.” And so would we take our farewell of the old “Hall,” while our eyes are yet dazzled with the bright glitter of its thronged benches, galleries, and aisles, and our ears and hearts vibrating to the mighty “concert of sweet sounds” and peals of harmony poured forth from the almost matchless orchestra and benches of choristers, that lend their powers to complete the glories of the great “Festival.” The festival suggests thoughts on music, its history and progress, and of the minds that have fostered and directed its growth in this particular region, so successfully as to have gained for the “Old City” its present high position in the musical world. Music and devotion have gone hand-in-hand from the era of the earliest singing men and singing women of Israel, and the timbrel of Miriam; the Jewish temple echoed the lofty strains of “David’s harp” and the songs of the “Chief Musician;” from the pagan worship of the Greeks sprung the Ambrosian chant, and the Christian Church has been the birthplace and nursery of the grandest conceptions that have flowed from the pen of inspired genius in every later age. The _antiphonal_ singing of the earliest choirs, where a phrase of melody, after being sung by one portion of the choristers, was echoed by others at certain distances, at a higher or lower pitch, gave rise to the modern fugue. The Pope from his throne lent his aid to improve the ecclesiastical chant, and gave it his name.