If I have less novelty to offer in this rny last essay, than in any former one, an obvious reason may be given. We are at home. I shall be of necessity also more fragmentary than heretofore, because I cannot conceive that the connection of link with link, of cause with effect, as regards manners, art, society, can require so much explanation here, as in the case of other lands. And yet there may be things in our own streets and at our own doors, as well as in our outlying districts, which are for these very reasons of familiarity overlooked.

And possibly these things may be discussed without my becoming polemical. It is to be noted, however, as a characteristic, that when we touch upon this country of ours–to wit, Great Britain, including the Principality, North Britain, and Ireland–we enter a region of anything rather than brotherly love or concord, as regards music; a region of hot con troversy over our rich treasures of national melody ; treasures more vast and peculiar, considering the area within which they are found, than distinguish any of the districts glanced at in my former sketches.