The character of this book is sufficiently explained by its title. It is, and pretends to be, nothing but a collection of articles on various musical topics republished from the newspapers and magazines in each case specified. In order to preserve their temporary character, alterations of the contents, and even of the form, of the essays have been, with few exceptions, purposely avoided. Whether their repiiblication is warranted by the matter and manner of these essays it is not my province to decide. But to those who object on principle to the perpetuation in book form of such fugitive pieces–and the author himself is not wholly free from such a prejudice—it may be answered, that the present volume is part of an unmistakable movement in modern literature. The vast development of periodical publications within the last quarter of a century has drawn the best literary and scientific workers into its vortex. Few authors nowadays can withstand the temptation of the immediate and vast publicity conferred by the prestige of a first-class Eeview; fewer can materially afford to give years of, in most cases, ill-requited labour to the composition of a book. Books, in the proper sense of the word, that is, organisms developed from a central idea, are in consequence becoming rarer and rarer in our literature, and collections of essays take their place.