Sir,—­Personally it occurs to me that in a public sense it may not appear to be out of due place nor uninstructive to the readers of the pages of the “Bath Chronicle,” if they were allowed to pursue quietly the “meditation” which I have thought fit, with, some amount of feasible excuse, to set in fair order, concerning the apotheosis of an evening service in musical form, from the versatile pen of Mr. Berthold Tours, in the key of D, which, with no inconsiderable eclat was in the sequence of events, produced at St. Raphael’s Church, Bristol, on Sunday, the 12th inst.  A companion to the graceful evening service or setting of the appointed Canticles in F major, which be it observed, is the most popular, and from a purely suitable point of view, most successful of modern evening services, it marks a phase of expression, at once ethereal and predilectious.  Produced at a more mature period, and under certainly different circumstances, it confirms, honours indeed, the fecundity of the age of its inception, namely, the era of British AEstheticism.

Commenting upon its attributes discursively, it was at the period of its original initiation in London my privilege to be present; nor must I omit to graphically allude to my belief, not choosing to be otherwise than candid with my first impressions, that I had never listened to anything which so rapturously illustrated the spirit of those soul-elevating times; even to experiencing a passing pang, since the perplexing principles or established secrets of decorative or AEsthetic art, as understood by me, had so curiously been cajoled or interwoven into the very sanctuary of Classic Music.  Every phrase appeared eloquently to illustrate and tell aloud the great burst of passionate fervour, felt to be with serious activity glistening, sparkling around, in painting and in decorative device.  It was, as it were the unition, the brazing together of these serious impinging forces, and re-fusing them with fresher melody, newer vital ecstasy.  (Sir) Edward Burne Jones, Oscar Wilde and W.S.  Gilbert had all not dubiously striven nor for shallow effect.  They had, though labouring incessantly apart, built up a ghost which was in no fear of glimmering or dissolution; and now Berthold Tours, spright of another element of sentimental, I should say continental mythical music, upon the scene springs with his amazing apparatus of staves and octaves, aiding the chef-de-musique and his trained voices to make sound within the very presence chamber of Divine Worship this phantasmagoria of Teuton intellectualism!

Be it understood that this Classic exercise is not to be ceremoniously regarded, nor classified, nor by me upheld as an example of Creative Art, but as the brightest pledge of homage aesthetically offered to a vital movement, essentially fundamental and wise; furthermore, must be allowed to occupy a position subsidiary to the works of the artists enumerated who evidently inspired it; unique and decidedly without an exact parallel in the inspired annals of modern phonetic literature; prefering at a more intimate examination to classify with it Professor C. Villiers Stanford’s setting of the Te Deum and Jubilate in B flat—­works, easily gracing the “Summus Mons” of co-spiritual achievement; that impulse which selects, confirms, and then unites all the fair fibres of Art.