The Parisian dilettanti, as far as I have been able to observe, though ever ready for controversy, have only one very touchy point. If you cannot relish Mademoiselle Rachel, it is ascribed to a sentiment for Mademoiselle Mars; and a loophole is made for your escape from indignation, by the sympathy which the French have always been willing to extend to passions for old women. If you do not like Duprez, you are excused on the plea of supposed regrets for Nourrit. You may balance between Liszt and Thalberg, and still be regarded as a person who has a right to an opinion. You may extol the delicate and dreamy Chopin as superior to either; and it will rather serve you than otherwise, as earning for you the covetable reputation of one whose taste leads him to the gem rather than to the bas-relief—to what is choicest, and only appreciable by the few, in Art. You may even prefer Kalkbrenner, and a civil shrug of the shoulders is all the visitation your peculiar taste will encounter. As to the Italian singers, they are matters of fair dispute; and so long as you do not assert that Rubini is quite inaudible, you will be let alone, — or, at the severest, be let down by being quietly assured that “they never sing fit to be heard in London.”