experience of amateur Belgian choirs, in comparing them with ours, said that the general quality of voice was much higher with us, but that owing to their better musical education, the Belgians were far in advance of us in the matter of sight reading and training generally. Surely we could learn these things as well as anyone else.

Again, we have in our old legends and our history matter enough to inspire entire generations of national poets and musicians for the whole spirit of our old Literature is highly poetical and suggestive.

In a Dublin paper recently a writer complained that we had had enough of the German Beethoven and called for an Irish Beethoven. One yentures, however, to doubt that we have had enough or anything like enough of Beethoven and the other great masters of European art. Unfortunately one does not see any signs of over-familiarity with their works. Let us hope that we shall one day have an Irish musician worthy of ranking beside the great German, but Heaven forbid that he should have the misfortune to come while we are so unprepared for him. The German Beethoven had a hard enough time in musical Vienna. Imagine our unfortunate genius composing Symphonies for a public that would much rather have 'Revues.' And if he were so illadvised as to write a 'Fidelio,' where would it be produced? Probably in Germany. If we have it in us to accomplish anything in music, unlimited Beethoven can only do us good. No country ever came so thoroughly under the dominion of foreign art as did Germany, and no other country has produced such a magnificent output of characteristic music, utterly unlike its model. Real originality, whether individual or national, will out.

There is no reason why we should not in time and under more favourable conditions be able to do what others have done in the direction of national music, provided we are "musical" enough and "national" enough. We were both once upon a time. The future will tell whether we have lost our salient characteristics or whether we are still capable of appreciating what is highest and best in art and have preserved enough of our nationality to produce a music embodying the spirit of our race as truly as do our ancient

VOL. XLIII.-No. 509.

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melodies. Then Ireland may hope to hear again: the geantrage in keeping with her gayest moods; the goltraige, sad with memories of the past; and the suantraige, that will soothe her to forgetfulness and weave for her dreams of a brighter morrow.

OUR DEAD

God rest our dead, our dead who lie
In blood-drenched soil 'neath alien sky
Where bleak or balmy breezes blow.
No grass green shamrocks round them grow,
No friend for them breathes sob or sigh,
No mourner wipes a tear-dimmed eye.
The strangers pass their grave mounds by
Breathing no prayer for those below.

Men of all nations testify

God rest our dead!

To their brave deeds, their courage high.
Forgetting wrongs of long ago,

And tyranny, and want and woe,
They showed their comrades how to die.

God rest our dead!

MAGDALEN ROCK.

WHEN THE WOOD IS GREEN

By Madge Blundell.

CHAPTER XII.

From her station under the cypress trees Giovanna watched the funeral procession, minute in the distance, wind along the road far below and up the path to the cemetery. She could see the pall-covered coffin, a black speck in the little black crowd.

Long after everything was over she sat on, her eyes seeming drawn and held to the cemetery, lying there on the open hillside. It must have been after some hours that Luigia roused her, coming to tell her that a man from the Villa degli Uccelli begged leave to speak with her alone.

Her heart leapt at the news: what could this portend unless it was a message from him-a message, as it seemed now, from the dead?

As she expected, she found the valet, half-English, halfItalian, who had served Brian for many years, waiting for her. He was a faithful, simple fellow, and his face now was disfigured with weeping. He blurted out his errand without any preliminaries.

“He wished me to bring you this, and to tell no one." He handed her a sealed envelope bearing no address.

Giovanna took it, and then stood dumbly before him: she could not bring herself to open the letter in the presence of a witness.

It was unlikely that Brian should have confided in his servant, but Peter had probably found no difficulty in guessing his secret. He looked hesitatingly at the girl for an instant before hazarding his next statement.

"I thought I'd tell you on my own account, Miss, that I

never had to take a message or post a letter from him to any young lady before, and never knew him seem to notice one." It seemed to Giovanna that Brian was sending a protestation of his single-heartedness to her from across the grave, by the lips of his servant.

"I thought," went on Peter anxiously, after a pause, "that you might like to know this, Miss."

"Thank you thank you for telling me, Peter," she stammered. "He would not have Mrs. Hope know that we loved each other. I suppose you guessed that?"

"Well, Miss, he told me never to speak of you to her, but he said he said when he gave me this note, that if you had not been able to bring him happiness in life you had given. it to him in death. He was talking of something as you'd said, Miss, I believe. I had never seen him say prayers before, but he repeated them after his mother nearly to the end, and died very peaceful."

Here the poor man began to sob bitterly, and at sight of his tears Giovanna's own flowed. She could only find words to thank the servant again for bringing her what consolation he could, and when he had gone she fled to her own room with the note clasped tightly in her hand. She locked the door and carried the envelope to the window. She would not open it just yet: it contained the last message from Brian, the very last words that would ever be connected with him in her life, the final seal upon their brief love-story. She looked down at the lake and recalled the day on which she had first beheld him, the same day on which Aunt Mary had discovered that he had advanced heart-disease-that he was doomed. Oh, why had she not spoken at once? Then those lost days might have been saved. Miss Whyte had thought she was in love with Andreas, and that distraction. would be good for her! Oh, how cruel had been the mistake.

Again the black shade of the cypress trees, from which she sought in vain to avert her gaze, seemed to draw her irresistibly. Yes it was there, under the trees where she had met so abruptly with the extremes of joy and sorrow in his company, whence she could look down upon Brian's distant grave, that she would open her letter.

Thither she betook herself with lagging steps, and seating herself on the brink of the precipice, she slowly and deliberately went over in her mind all the moments she had passed in her lover's company, moments that constituted but a fraction of her life, and that yet had held the whole of its vital part. At last she broke the seal. Slowly, slowly, she must read the few words, since the hand that wrote them would never hold pen again.

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Giovanna, my last thoughts are for you. I wanted to spare Mother; she has suffered, and has yet to suffer, so much because of me. I'm not strong enough to write explanations-you understand--you will forgive me. You helped me: your courage made me brave. I have tried to resign myself into God's hands with goodwill as you told me to do, and I say the 'Our Father' very often. I can put my trust now in the God who sent you to me, because the thought of you brings me joy, even in death. I say to myself over and over again: She loves me, she is praying for me!' and I feel glad to have lived if only that I might die with such thoughts. When my eyes are closed and my lips can't form your name any more, Giovanna, I will still hold your image in my heart."

Her eyes devoured the few lines of wavering handwriting until they seemed to be burnt into her brain; but solace stole into her aching heart the while. She had helped him; the thought of her had overcome his bitterness with gladness in the end.

CHAPTER XIII.

Giovanna passed several days in her room, during which her aunt ministered to her with unobtrustive sympathy.

Miss Whyte told their peasant neighbours that the Signorina was ill; when she repeated the same statement to Mr. Bird she accompanied it with a look that plainly forbade question or comment, whereupon he unexpectedly maintained a tactful silence.

It was very early one morning that Giovanna at last made