Detailed description of the triumphant progress of the new work from town to town is no longer necessary. The composer was overwhelmed with invitations to conduct it from the manuscript, and Bülow, convalescent from his illness, and determined not to be outdone in enthusiasm, placed it twice, as second and fourth numbers, in a Meiningen programme of five works. On publication, it was performed in all the chief music-loving towns of Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States. In an account of a performance of the symphony at a Hamburg Philharmonic concert under Brahms in December, which followed one under von Bernuth after three weeks' interval, the critic of the _Correspondenten_ says: 'Brahms' interpretation of his works frequently differs so inconceivably in delicate rhythmic and harmonic accents from anything to which one is accustomed, that the apprehension of his intentions could only be entirely possible to another man possessed of exactly similar sound-susceptibility or inspired by the power of divination.' The author feels a peculiar interest in quoting these lines, which strikingly corroborate the impression formed by her on hearing this and other of Brahms' works played under his own direction. The publications of 1884 were, besides the third Symphony, Two Songs for Contralto with Viola and Pianoforte, the second being the 'Virgin's Cradle Song,' already mentioned as one of the compositions of 1865; two sets of four-part Songs, the one for accompanied Solo voices, the other for mixed Chorus _a capella_, and the two books of Songs, Op. 94 and 95. At this date Brahms had entered into what we may call the third period of his activity as a song-writer--one in which he frequently chose texts that speak of loneliness or death. The wonderful beauty of his settings of these subjects penetrates the very soul, and by the mere force of its pathos carries to the hearer the conviction that the composer speaks out of the feeling of his own heart. Stockhausen, trying the song 'Mit vierzig Jahren' (Op. 94, No. 1) from the manuscript to the composer's accompaniment, was so affected during its performance that he could not at once proceed to the end. Our remarks are, however, by no means intended to convey the impression that Brahms only or generally chose poems of a melancholy tendency at this time. WITH FORTY YEARS. BY FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT (1788-1866).