applies himself to national melodies. All London seems vocal and
instrumental. Every dead wall is covered with naming _affiches_,
announcing in long array the vast army of vocal and instrumental
talent which is to assist at such and such a morning performance; and
the eyes of the owner of a vast musical stomach are dazzled and
delighted by programmes which will at least demand five hours in the
performance.

So is London, in the course of the season, the congress of nearly all
the performing musical notabilities of Europe. Time has been when they
came to London for cash, not renown: now they come for both. A London
reputation is beginning to rival a Parisian vogue, besides being ten
times more profitable; and, accordingly, from every musical corner in
Christendom, phenomena of art pour in, heralded by the utmost possible
amount of puffing, and equally anxious to secure English gold and a
London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the
musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial
town; a basso works himself to London from a theatre in
Constantinople; rumours arrive of a peerless prima donna, with a voice
which is to outstrip everything ever heard of, who has been dug out,
by some travelling amateur, from her native obscurity in a Spanish or
Norwegian village; an extraordinary soprano has been discovered in
Alexandria; a wondrous contralto has been fished up from Riga. The
instrumental phenomena are not one whit scarcer. Classical pianists
pour in from Germany principally; popular pianists, who delight in
fantasias rather than concertos, and who play such tricks with the
keyboards, that the performances have much more of the character of
legerdemain than of art, arrive by scores; violinists, violoncellists,
professors of the trombone, of the ophicleide, of the bassoon, of
every unwieldy and unmanageable instrument in fact, are particularly