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130                 Illustrations of Lancashire

zines. Societies devoted to science, literature, and the fine arts exist, as in Liverpool, in plenty. The exhibitions of paintings at the Royal Institution have always been attractive, and never more so than during the last few years, when on Sunday afternoons they have been thrown open to the public gratis. The "School of Design," founded in October 1838, now called the "School of Art," recently provided itself with a proper home in Grosvenor Square. There is also a society expressly of "Women Painters," the works of many of whom have earned honourable places. In addition to its learned societies, Manchester stands alone, perhaps, among English cities in having quite seven or eight set on foot purely with a view to rational enjoyment in the helds, the observation of Nature in its most pleasing and suggestive forms, and the obtaining accurate knowledge of its details—the birds, the trees, and the wild-flowers. The oldest of these is the "Field-Naturalists and Archaeologists," founded in 1860. The members of the youngest go by the name of the "Grass- hoppers." Flower-shows, again, are a great feature in Manchester: some held in the Town-hall, others in the Botanical Gardens. In August 1881 the greatest and richest Horticultural Exhibition of which there is record was

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held at Old Trafford, in the gardens, lasting five days, and with award in prizes of upwards of £2000. Laid out within a few yards of the ground occupied in 1857 by the celebrated Fine Art Treasures Exhibition, the only one of the kind ever attempted in England, it was no less brilliant to the visitor than creditable to the promoters. No single spot of earth has ever been devoted to illustrations so exquisite of the most beautiful forms of living nature, and of the artistic talent of man than were then brought together.
Music is cultivated in Manchester with a zest quite proportionate to its value. The original "Gentlemen's Concert Club" was founded as far back as the year of alarm 1745. The local love of glees and madrigals preserves the best traditions of the Saxon "glee-men." On 10th March 1881 the veteran Charles Halle, who quite recently had been earning new and glorious laurels at Prague, Vienna, and Pesth, led the five hundredth of his great concerts in the Free-trade Hall. "Our town," remarked the Guardian in its next day's report of the proceedings, "is at present the city of music par excellence in England. . . . The outside world knows three things of Manchester - that it is a city of cotton, a city of economic ideas,