AN OLD MUSIC-PUBLISHING FIRM.

The proprietor of. the firm of Robert Cocks and Co., London, music publishers to the Queen, proposes to retire, and the good will, copyrights and stock will accordingly be offered to auction in October. The original Robert Cocks, who, after sixty years in business, tetired in 1881, was a poor boy of fourteen, who came to London, and being smitten by the attractions of a military drum and fifo band/ resolved to learn the flute. He found a kindly teachor, and after business hours walked from Regent street to tho East End every night for his lessons. In 1823, at Princes street, he joined the ranks of music publishers,, (moat of the firms of that day, such as Wessel, Goulding and d'Almaine, Lonsdale, Monzaniand Hill, Ebers and Preston, have disappeared), and after twenty-one years he moved to New Burlington street, where the house has since remained. The firm brought out in London the pianists Czerny, Sohuloff, and Dreyschock, and published Rimbault and Hopkins's history of the organ aod the ' Schools "f of Spohr, Czerny, Marx, Albrechsberger, Reicha and Cherubini. In accordance with the good old custom, Robert Cocks, during the first quarter century of his business lifd, worked sixteen hours a day. Ho lived to be nearly unety.