To those who only know the Philharmonic to-day, in its more or less repentant and reformed state, it may not seem odd that Wagner should have conducted its concerts. But to those who remember it from, say, twenty-five years ago to quite recent times, a certain incongruity is apparent. Wagner, the sincere, fiery artist, the man devoted to, swallowed up by, his art; the man who journeyed, with his wife and a dog, all the way from Russia to Paris with his bare travelling expenses in his pocket; who had been through a bloody revolution, and was now a political refugee; who had written part of the _Ring_ and had _Tristan_ "already planned in his head"; a conductor whose ideal was nothing lower than perfection--this gentleman came from Zurich to conduct a society whose membership was compact of trim and prim mediocrity, and whose directors were mostly duffers. Can we wonder that both sides were disappointed? These amiable directors never quite recovered from the honour of having Mendelssohn to conduct for them; and they undoubtedly looked upon Wagner as scarcely a next-best. The days of oratorio had by no means finished yet; oratorio was the thing; an instrumental concert was very well for a change once in a while, provided there were plenty of Italian opera airs to sugar the nasty pill; Haydn was the last word in symphony, the homage paid to Beethoven being the merest lip-worship. The Philharmonic was certainly no place for Wagner; yet, it must be insisted, there was no real reason for grumbling on either side. Wagner got his money; the society had one of the best seasons on its record.