and realises with a sigh that the human memory is treacherous.  Who, for instance, that is familiar with Schubert’s music can easily believe that it is a hundred years since the composer was born and seventy since he died?  It is as startling to find him, as one might say, one of the ancients as it is to remember that Spohr lived until comparatively recent times; for whereas Spohr’s music is already older than Beethoven’s, older than Mozart’s, in many respects quite as old as Haydn’s, much of Schubert’s is as modern as Wagner’s, and more modern than a great deal that was written yesterday.  This modernity will, I fancy, be readily admitted by everyone; and it is the only one quality of Schubert’s music which any two competent people will agree to admit.  Liszt had the highest admiration for everything he wrote; Wagner admired the songs, but wondered at Liszt’s acceptance of the chamber and orchestral music.  Sir George Grove outdoes Liszt in his Schubert worship; and an astonishing genius lately rushed in, as his kind always does, where Sir George would fear to tread, boldly, blatantly asserting that Schubert is “the greatest musical genius that the Western world has yet produced.”  On the other hand, Mr. G. Bernard Shaw out-Wagners Wagner in denunciation, and declares the C symphony childish, inept, mere Rossini badly done.  Now, I can understand Sir George Grove’s enthusiasm; for Sir George to a large extent discovered Schubert; and disinterested art-lovers always become unduly excited about any art they have discovered:  for example, see how excited Wagner became about his own music, how rapt Mr. Dolmetsch is in much of the old music.  But I can understand Wagner’s attitude no better than I can the attitude of Mr. Shaw.  I should like to have met Wagner and have said to him, “My dear Richard, this disparaging tone is not good enough:  where did you get the introduction to ’The Valkyrie’?—­didn’t that long tremolo D and the figure in the bass both come out of ‘The Erl-king’? has your Spear theme nothing in common with the last line but one of ’The Wanderer’? or—­if it is only the instrumental music you object to—­did you learn nothing for the third act of ‘The Valkyrie’ from the working-out of the Unfinished Symphony? did you know that Schubert had used your Mime theme in a quartet before you? do you know that I could mention a hundred things you borrowed from Schubert?  Go to, Richard:  be fair.”  Having extinguished Richard thus, and made his utter discomfiture doubly certain by handing him a list of the hundred instances, I should turn to Mr. Shaw and say, “My good G.B.S., you understand a good deal about politics and political economy, Socialism, and Fabians, painting and actors [and so on, with untrue and ill-natured remarks ad lib.], but evidently you understand very little about Schubert.  That ‘Rossini crescendo’ is as tragic a piece of music as ever was written.”  Yet, after dismissing the twain in this friendly manner, I should have an uneasy feeling that there was some