such force. Aside from this outcome of his Berserker mood, Auber is
a charming exponent of the grace, brightness, and piquancy of French
society and civilization. If rarely deep, he is never dull, and no
composer has given the world more elegant and graceful melodies of
the kind which charm the drawing-room and furnish a good excuse for
young-lady pianism.

The following sprightly and judicious estimate of Auber by one of the
ablest of modern critics, Henry Chorley, in the main lixes him in his
right place:

"He falls short of his mark in situations of profound pathos (save
perhaps in the sleep-song of 'Masaniello'). He is greatly behind his
Italian brethren in those mad scenes which they so largely affect. He is
always light and piquant for voices, delicious in his treatment of the
orchestra, and at this moment of writing--though I believe the patriarch
of opera-writers (born, it is said, in 1784), having begun to compose
at an age when other men have died exhausted by precocious labor--is
perhaps the lightest-hearted, lightest-handed man still pouring out
fragments of pearl and spangles of pure gold on the stage.... With all
this it is remarkable as it is unfair, that among musicians--when
talk is going around, and this person praises that portentous piece
of counterpoint, and the other analyzes some new chord the uoliness of
which has led to its being neglected by former composers--the name of
this brilliant man is hardly if ever heard at all. His is the next name
among the composers belonging to the last thirty years which should be
heard after that of Rossini, the number and extent of the works produced
by him taken into account, and with these the beauties which they
contain."