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REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 281 
On Music. 
By M. Jcutes Mrrnuay. 
an article or essay on Music, to be read before this learned Society, 
[naturally felt gratified at having been chosen for this task, as 
well as at being, as I believe, the first professional musician entered 
on your list of members. I must then commence by thanking 
you for this mark of your esteem for me as an artist, and my 
second duty is to assure you that I shall always do my best to prove 
worthy of it, by contributing my mite towards the progress of this 
Royal Society of New South Wales. 
e subject of this address has been suggested by the apparent 
state of humiliation in which, it seems to me, music is vegetating 
in this Colony. I notice with amazement, for instance, that many 
persons here, even amongst the learned, question the claims of 
Music to the highest ranks of excellence as an art; and it 
tod . . 
should therefore be interesting to discuss this question, and try to 
and discussion of our Medical Section. Now, there are other per- 
Sons who do not like musicians, and who visit on music a part 0 
the contempt they feel for its votaries. I knew, however, a rich 
amateur who, when asked if he loved music, replied: ‘ Do I nor 
love music ! Why, sir, I love it so much that musicians themselves 
have been unable to disgust me with it.” Well, the test is some- 
times a severe one. Again, there side questions, as that 
Nature has not made us all alike, and that it would therefore be 
as ridiculous for a musician to expect that every one should like 
music, as for an astronomer, for instance, to be indignant that every 
one cannot calculate the par 0 . 
speaks to every one. I speak of course of the simplest, which, for 
some nations, is the only kind, consisting of a few airs and dance 
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