When the idea first occurred to me of writing a paper upon this subject—a subject in which, for more than twenty years, I have taken a practical interest—I put it aside, feeling that so light and literary a subject might possibly be regarded by some of our more scientific members as hardly worthy of the attention of one whole monthly meeting; and also hesitating, as a comparatively new member, to come forward and occupy a position which is so frequently filled by more experienced writers, treating of more exclusively musical matters. However, in each new paper which I listened to here I recognised, as I thought, an absence of dogmatism which clearly distinguished the readers of our papers from lecturers or teachers; it seemed to me that the tone of our meetings was not so much to gather instruction from the reader of the paper as to gather instruction from the members present, by the help of the reader of the paper. And therefore, not in the expectation of being able to teach anything new to anybody present here this evening, but as one anxious that a favourite subject should be discussed by this society, I ventured to offer this paper to the secretary.