critical listener to what was good and tuneful. His favourite
composers were Mendelssohn--whose _Lieder_ he was specially
fond of[1]--Chopin, and Mozart. He heard Gounod's _Faust_
whilst he was in Paris, and confesses to having been quite
overcome with the beauty of the music. 'I couldn't bear it,'
he says, in one of his letters, 'and gave in completely. The
composer must be a very remarkable man indeed.' At the same
time he became acquainted with Offenbach's music, and heard
_Orphée aux enfers_. This was in February, 1863. Here also he
made the acquaintance of Auber, 'a stolid little elderly man,
rather petulant in manner.' He told Dickens that he had lived
for a time at 'Stock Noonton' (Stoke Newington) in order to
study English, but he had forgotten it all. In the description
of a dinner in the _Sketches_ we read that

The knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to
Auber's music, and Auber's music would form a pleasing
accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything
besides the cymbals.

He met Meyerbeer on one occasion at Lord John Russell's. The
musician congratulated him on his outspoken language on Sunday
observance, a subject in which Dickens was deeply interested,
and on which he advocated his views at length in the papers
entitled _Sunday under Three Heads_.

Dickens was acquainted with Jenny Lind, and he gives the
following amusing story in a letter to Douglas Jerrold, dated
Paris, February 14, 1847: