Mitrofane Petrovich Belaiev, born February 10th, 1836, was a wealthy timber merchant, with a sincere love of music. He was an exception to the type of the Russian commercial man of his day, having studied the violin and piano in his youth and found time amid the demands of a large business to occupy his leisure with chamber music. My recollections of Belaiev recall a brusque, energetic and somewhat choleric personality of the "rough diamond" type; a passionate, but rather indiscriminate, enthusiast, and an autocrat. Wishing to give some practical support to the cause of national music, he founded a publishing house in Leipzig in 1885 where he brought out a great number of works by the members of the then new school, including a fine edition of Borodin's _Prince Igor_. He also founded the Russian Symphony Concerts, the programmes of which were drawn exclusively from the works of native composers. In 1889 he organised the Russian Concerts given with success at the Paris Exhibition; and started the "Quartet Evenings" in St. Petersburg in 1891. Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazounov and Liadov wrote a string quartet in his honour, on the notes B-la-f. Belaiev died in 1904, but the Leipzig house still continues its work under its original manager, Herr Scheffer. Undoubtedly Belaiev exercised a powerful influence on the destinies of Russian music. Whether he was better fitted to be the central point of its activities at a certain stage of its development than Balakirev is a question which happily I am not called upon to decide. Money and business capacity are useful, perhaps indispensable, adjuncts to artistic progress in the present day, but they can never wholly take the place of enthusiasm and unstinted devotion. "_Les choses de l'âme n'ont pas de prix_," says Renan; nevertheless there is a good deal of bidding done for them in this commercial age. It is easy to understand the bitterness of heart with which the other-worldly and unconformable Balakirev saw the members of his school passing one by one into "the circle of Belaiev." He had steered the ship of their fortunes through the storms and shoals that beset its early ventures; but another was to guide it into the haven of prosperity and renown. Rimsky-Korsakov, in his "Chronicle of my Musical Life," makes his recantation of old ideals and enthusiasms in the following terms: "Balakirev's circle was revolutionary; Belaiev's progressive. Balakirev's disciples numbered five; Belaiev's circle was more numerous, and continued to grow in numbers. All the five musicians who constituted the older school were eventually acknowledged as leading representatives of Russian music; the later circle was made up of more varied elements; some of its representatives were men of great creative gifts, others were less talented, and a few were not even composers, but conductors, like Dütsh, or executants like Lavrov. Balakirev's circle consisted of musicians who