A national. Concert,

English music was drawn upon for the first national night of tho aeries mapped out by the Mnsioa.l Committee, given last evening in the concert hall, before an audience befitting the programme, which had been drawn np and was carried out under the direction of Mr Kobert Parker, who in troduood it with some. apt remarks, and referred at intervals;to items of special interest These “ notes by tuc way were of mnoh value and lent an added interest to the contributions. In his selection Mr Parker exercised a musioianly taste, tbo de lightful melodies of Old England being brought chronologically along from IuCO to 1595, in a couple of madrigals, through the 17th century, represented by' tho song 1“° Bailiff’s Danght-.r of Islington,” Mrs Bur foot being tbo interpreter.; from tho loth century there wore hal r -a-dozon gems taken —“ O Bid Your Ariel Fly,” given by Madame Evoleon Carlton, who later ou also gave “ Toll Me, My Heart”; two glees, “The Anchor's Weighed ” and “ Tom Bow ling,” by Air B. 11. Williams, and “The Death of Nelson ” by Mr J. Murrell;; whilst our own century supplied selections from tho works of Sir \V. Jjtecndalo Bennett, Bir J.Batnby and Sir Arthur rullivan, tho songs being sung by Messrs R. B. Williams and J. Whittall, and Airs Burfoot’s singing of “ The Lost Chord,” accompanied most affectively upon the organ by Mr Parker, received (by special exception) the only encore of tho evening, .although the applause to all tho items was of the A special feature was the singing of a mixed choir, some 25 strong, who gave the madri gals, glees and part songs unaccompanied. Mias Dugdale'a contribution in the first part was some Shakespeare dances, composed by E. German for Sir Henry Irving, and in the second a bracket of three of Sterndale Bennett’s compositions'. The accompanists of the evening were Mrs ‘ Alurrell, Misses Dugdalo and Grant and Mr Parker.
