To-day the lady who condescends to teach the art of pianoforte execution to the young people in a popular London quarter drives up to the house in her own victoria and would no more be kept waiting a minute for her appointment than if she were a duchess in her own right. The accomplished foreigner who plays the violin alights from a brougham drawn by a pair of thoroughbreds. If he is to be induced to honour a friend in Grosvenor Square with his company at dinner, the invitation must be given at least three weeks beforehand. The 'master' must choose his own fellow guests, and supervise the menu before it is finally decided on; the dinner itself must be so arranged that to a moment it will occupy the time which the great man prescribes. The conversation must be so contrived as to coruscate with epigram, and to fascinate with anecdotes all warranted to be new, lest the diner of the evening should have the slightest touch of boredom. If these conditions are not satisfied, this arbiter of taste may refuse to sit through the meal. He is the chartered libertine of the dining rooms and drawing rooms of the great. England has always possessed a considerable school of national composers. These might have achieved the highest triumphs of genius without acquiring a fraction of that social ascendancy for their art which it has gradually won. Under the auspices of the Prince Consort first, the patronage of the Court was secured for the art of St Cecilia. That day already mentioned on which Lady Lyttelton first heard the Queen's husband playing on the organ at Windsor was an eventful one for the social esteem of music in the adopted country of the Royal executant. After this came the Prince's directorship of the Ancient Concerts, and the arrangement of its programmes on special occasions by himself. The club principle during the married life of the Queen had in its popular illustration not gone beyond infancy. Otherwise, one of the Royal Family would, as he has since done, regularly have handled the conductor's baton; while for the special amusement of another a series of smoking concerts might as to-day have been arranged in Piccadilly palaces.