In 1856 he was appointed conductor of the Philharmonic Society, and filled the position for ten years, resigning it to take the head of the Royal Academy of Music. In the same year he was elected musical professor at Cambridge, where he received the degree of Doctor of Music and other honors. In 1858 his beautiful cantata "The May Queen" was produced at the Leeds Festival, and in 1862 the "Paradise and the Peri" overture, written for the Philharmonic Society. In 1867 his oratorio, or, as he modestly terms it, "sacred cantata," "The Woman of Samaria," was produced with great success at the Birmingham Festival. In 1870 he was honored with a degree by the University of Oxford, and a year later received the empty distinction of knighthood. His last public appearance was at a festival in Brighton in 1874, where he conducted his "Woman of Samaria." He died Feb. 1, 1875, and was buried in Westminster Abbey with distinguished honors. The May Queen. "The May Queen," a pastoral cantata, the libretto by Henry F. Chorley, was first performed at the Leeds Festival of 1858. The solo parts are written for the May Queen (soprano); the Queen (contralto); the Lover (tenor); and the Captain of the Foresters, as Robin Hood (bass). The opening scene pictures the dressing of the tree for the spring festivity on the banks of the Thames, and the preparations for the reception of the May Queen. A despondent lover enters and sings his melancholy plight as he reflects upon the fickleness of the May Queen, interrupted at intervals by the merry shouts of the chorus:-- "With a laugh as we go round To the merry, merry sound Of the tabor and the pipe, We will frolic on the green; For since the world began, And our royal river ran, Was never such a May Day, And never such a Queen." The lover continues his doleful lamenting, which is at last interrupted by the entrance of the May Queen herself, who chides him for his complaints and argues her right to coquet on such a day. As their interview closes, a band of foresters enter with their greenwood king, Robin Hood, at their head, who after a rollicking hunting-song makes open love to the May Queen. The enraged lover resents his impertinence, and at last strikes him a blow, which by the laws exposes him to the loss of his hand. Before he can make his escape there is a flourish of trumpets, and the Queen enters and demands the reason for the brawl. The revellers inform her that the lover has struck the forester. She orders his arrest, whereupon the May Queen intercedes with her for her lover's release and declares her affection for him. Her appeal for mercy is granted. The forester is banished from the royal presence for lowering himself to the level of a peasant girl, the May Queen is ordered to wed her lover on the coming morn, and all ends happily with the joyous chorus:--