The regular performance of Italian opera, sung in Italian, has been carried on in London almost without interruption for about two centuries. We may date its beginning from 1705, when Vanbrugh's new theatre in the Haymarket was opened with Gli Amori d’Ergasto by Jacob Greber, and we may conveniently take 1891 as the date of its official end, since in 1892 Augustus Harris ceased to call his enterprise “Royal Italian Opera” and announced it simply as “Royal Opera.” As far as I know no history of this Italian opera organisation has ever been written, although there is plenty of information about it available in various separate books, as well as documentary sources of all kinds such as contemporary newspapers, librettos, programmes and so forth.

The subject is such a vast one, and Sir Thomas Beecham has written so perfectly and with such beauty about Delius, that I feel most diffident at speaking, and will only touch on the chamber and instrumental music, and recall some of the many lovely memories which my sisters and I treasure of Delius and his wonderful wife Jelka, whom we knew very intimately for about the last eighteen years of their lives.

This short extract from Professor Housman's Introductory Lecture delivered before the Faculties of Arts and Laws and of Science in University College, London, in the year 1892, is set down here to help me to disencumber my mind and to tell a plain tale in simple words; indeed, you too will have pondered upon those things which appertain to Music Studies. Throughout this Paper “I tell you that which you yourselves do know,” and I shall hope to be instructed in the Discussion.