wandering steps. I have mentioned the Birmingham Festival of 1885, which marked a new order--I might almost say a new epoch--in the history of the Birmingham Musical Festivals. For the first time for very many years Costa was no longer seen at the conductor's desk, and his place was taken by Richter. Costa conducted the Birmingham triennial performances for about half a century, and although it was sad to miss his face in 1885, he had done his work. In 1882--the last Festival in which he took part--it was painful to witness his efforts to conduct the performances. He was partly paralysed, and his baton, I believe, had to be fastened to his hand because he could not grasp it. Further, he was becoming deaf, and the result was that the loud brass instruments were allowed to become too blatant and obtrusive. Costa was a good man in his day, and he did good work. He was very autocratic, even despotic, but he introduced two good things into the orchestra--order and punctuality. With all his ability, tact, and nerve, it must, however, be admitted that his style of conducting was rough and ready compared with the art, care, and skill that mark musical conductorship of the present day. With Richter's appearance as conductor, some important changes and reforms were effected in the orchestral arrangements of the Festival. For one thing, the band was cut down in number. This, it was said, was in consequence of Richter's opinion that the balance of power was disturbed by too great a preponderance of string tone, but it is just possible that economy was considered when the change was made. Anyway, in 1885 there were over twenty stringed instruments less than in Costa's last year, 1882. This alteration was a notable one, and regrettable in some ways. The extra large string band that Costa would have made the Birmingham Festival orchestra something very special, and the result was some striking effects not heard elsewhere. Nowhere now do we hear that _tour de force_ which was almost electrical in the rush of violins at the end of the chorus "Thanks be to God" in the "Elijah," in Beethoven's "Leonora" overture, and in the last movement of the overture to "William Tell." The effect of the violins--between fifty and sixty in number--was something magical in the works just named. To put the matter in brief detail, under Costa's conductorship the string band numbered 108 players, when Richter took the orchestra in hand, it was reduced to eighty-six. I will not discuss the expediency of the change. Suffice it to say that the Festival band is now as good, perhaps better, than it ever was, save in the matter of numbers. To sum up very briefly the Festivals since 1885--the year that Richter succeeded Costa--the meeting of 1888 was remarkable for nothing that made any permanent notch in the record of the Festivals. Parry's oratorio "Judith" was the chief novelty, but, in spite of its masterly merit as a work of musical art, it was hardly received with the favour it deserved.