INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 23 
the poetry of ancient periods, the music must then already 
have been pervaded by great depth and richness of feeling. 
A magnificent piece of music surpasses even so far the 
most splendid of poems, as its sounds are the eloquence of one 
universal language. Among great operatic composers is one only, 
with whom word and sound emanated from the same mind and 
soul, and it is he also who never spent the sublimest of music on 
inadequate themes; it is he who, with Meyerbeer, in utmost impres- 
siveness gave to his musical effusions historic vividity, it is he who 
thus far knew to profit from the incomparable Avon-bard. So 
long as human suceptibilities exist for what is elevating, so long 
will master-pieces of music, of poetry and indeed also of pictori ial 
and plastic art be imperishable treasures, may they even have 
come to us from the time even of the Iliad. If we think of the 
names of the great masters, should then not also with some 
thankfulness be a remembrance for those, who drew men of high 
genius into their path or sustained them thereon? What would have 
been the fate of Beethoven in 1808, had it not been for the aid of the 
then Arch-Duke Rudolph, of Prince Lobkowitz and Count Kinski 
at that turbulent time? What would have become of Schiller at 
his protracted illness without the annuity spontaneously, in the 
most delicate of terms, bestowed by the Danish Crown-Prince and 
Count Schimmelpfenning , and that at a period when national and 
private resources were alike absorbed to a vast extent, because all 
~ Europe was in ar ms, not to speak of numerous other instances, 
when genius was in danger to be extinguished by worldly narrow- 
ness. The sunny sky Ma Australia seems to kindle a general love 
for music, and ‘has called forth many a_ talent already, some 
celebrating triumphs in the centres of European art, while a 
youth of this city carried off there among numerous competitors 
the Mozart-fellow ship. But distinctions (fon this our great land 
have not only been earned in the glorious cause of music. 
Photolithography, if not altogether it did arise in Victoria, 
became universally adopted in the particular process, elaborated 
here, and first explained before our Royal Society by one of 
Liebig’ s disciples, who too early became alienated from this colony. 
There also were first enunciated, however briefly, the views of the 
author of the Unseen Universe on the effects of rays, emanating 
from various substances ; and these early studies were follow ed 
up by a long series of appertaining researches at the great Home 
Observatory of Kew. Brennan’s torpedo is a Victorian achieve- 
ment, recognised as highly important by the British Government, 
and has proved lucrative to the constructor. 
It is about a hundred years ago when Galvani led the know- 
ledge of electricity into new courses for unforeboded vast influences 
through the technic world ; when Goethe conceived the first and 
far- reaching ideas of organic metamorphosis ; when Sir James 
Smith established the first society of just pretensiveness for a 
