travelling to town for every lesson, and repeating
what he had learnt to his own pupils after
his return.

It has been found that the number of people
who are supposed to have "no ears" is wonderfully
small; that, while only a few may have true
genius for music, all can learn its grammar, and
by patience with attention learn to bear their part
not disagreeably in madrigals and psalms. Thanks
to these singing schools the national ear has
improved, and the national taste has been raised.
Witness the enormous multiplication of concerts
in which the choral performers are amateurs;
witness the vast increase in the demand for
musical publications and in the sale of musical
instruments, especially of pianofortes and
harmoniums; witness the great improvement in
church music, and the admission even of chants
into dissenting chapels. Wherever there is a
large town it is now possible to form a chorus
at a minute's notice, and it will be a chorus of
singers, who are most at home in the best music,
and enjoy its performance for the music's sake, far
more than anybody can enjoy the act of listening.

A charming illustration of the benefit
conferred upon society by Mr. Hullah's labours,
we find in the working of St. Mark's School,
Windsor, reared, and in a great measure
sustained, by the beneficent energy of an Eton
master, the Rev. Stephen Hawtrey. This
school, which admits boys so far above the
lowest rank that they can pay sixpence a week
for their schooling, is one of the best of its kind
in the country. The basis of its discipline is a
full acceptance of the relation of love and
confidence between teacher and taught. To make
the resemblance to a family life greater, masters
and boys breakfast together at one board when
they meet, each boy bringing his bread and
butter and having cocoa given to him.

Mr. Hawtrey, preaching in the chapel at
Dedworth, was annoyed by the bad psalmody. While
considering what was to be done, he took up in
the publisher's shop a copy of Mr. Hullah's
Manual, then newly published under the direction
of the Privy Council. He saw that it met
his want, went to work at it himself together
with his clerk, attended the first choral meeting
of the classes in Exeter Hall, and then obtained
leave to teach music from notes to those of the
Windsor national schoolboys who showed a
disposition to learn. In that way a little choir
was formed that went to sing at Dedworth on a
Sunday. There was an afternoon and evening
service, and between the service singing boys
and minister had tea together. The minister,
being a wise, kindly, simple-hearted man,
affectionate feelings were thus stirred. When
difficulty about lessons at the national school
made a separate place necessary if the music-
school was to be continued, the boys
themselves eagerly found a cottage, and the school
then formed was not a school for music only.
Taken by their kind patron on board a man-
of-war, the St. Mark's boys by their manner and
behaviour so pleased the warm-hearted captain,
that he invited them to come and spend a week
on board "for the good of the ship." A picked
band of them really went, therefore, on board
the Pembroke, and were hospitably entertained
by Captain Chaslewood. Among the entertainment
they themselves afforded to the crew was
a complete performance upon Christmas-eve of
the Messiah; Mr. Hawtrey himself reverently
explaining to the men before each part, the
meaning of the music. The scene was so affecting
that the captain broke down in his thanks
to Mr. Hawtrey, with "May God bless you,
sir! May God bless you!" And afterwards,
one of the common seamen, after long standing
in thought beside his hammock before turning
in, was heard to mutter, "Well, I say so, too,
what the captain said, 'God bless him!'" But
let us not forget, as the kind guide of those
boys has not forgotten to record, that it was
Mr. Hullah who had put the song into those
children's mouths, whence it might sink into
the hearts of sturdy men. And with what
measure he weighed shall it not be now meted to
him again? Is the last issue of his labour to
be bankruptcy? Or, shall we help our helper,
that he may again be helpful to us as of old?

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE.
CHAPTER XXXII.

NEXT morning, just as day was breaking, we
set out on foot on our road to Constance.
There was a pinkish-grey streak of light on the
horizon, sure sign of a fine day, and the bright
stars twinkled still in the clear half-sombre sky,
and all was calm and noiseless—nothing to be
heard but the tramp of our own feet on the hard
causeway.

With the cowardly caution of one who feels
the water with his foot before he springs in to
swim, I was glad that I made my first
experiences of companionship with these humble
friends while it was yet dark and none could see
us. The old leaven of snobbery was unsubdued
in my heart, and, as I turned to look at poor
old Vaterchen and then at the tinsel finery of
Catinka, I bethought me of the little consideration
the world extends to such as these and
their belongings. "Vagabonds all!" would
say some rich banker, as he rolled by in his
massive travelling-carriage, creaking with
imperials and jingling with bells; "Vagabonds
all!" would mutter the Jew pedlar as he looked
down from the banquette of the diligence. How
slight is the sympathy of the realist for the
poor creature whose life-labour is to please.
How prone to regard him as useless, or, even
worse, forgetting, the while, how a wiser than he
has made many things in this beautiful world
of ours that they should merely minister to
enjoyment, gladden the eye and the ear, and make
our pilgrimage less weary. Where would be
the crimson jay? where the scarlet bustard?
where the gorgeous peacock, with the nosegay
on his tail? where the rose, and the
honeysuckle, and the purple foxglove, mingling with
the wild thorns in our hedgerows, if the
universe were of their creation, and this great globe