grave. The mere pianist who had aroused the most enthusiasm in this
country was Leopold de Meyer, who came more than twenty years ago. His
was a blithe, exhilarating style. There was a grotesque little plaster
cast of him in the shop-windows at the time, representing him
crouching over the instrument, with enormous hands spread upon the
keyboard, and his fat knees crowding in to cover all the rest of the
space. It was slam-bang playing, but so skilful, and with such a
tickling melody, that it was irresistibly popular. His "Marche
Marocaine," a brilliant _tour de force_, was always sure to captivate
the audience; and his success was indisputable.

De Meyer's concerts were sometimes given in the old Tabernacle in
Broadway, near Leonard Street, the circular church which for so many
years was the chief public hall in the city. The platform was almost
in the centre, and the aisles radiated from it. The galleries went
quite around the building, and, except for the huge columns which
supported a dome, it was convenient both for hearing and seeing. Here
were some of the great antislavery meetings in the hottest days of the
agitation. The anniversaries were held here, and it was the scene of
all popular lectures and of concerts. A few blocks above, upon
Broadway, near Canal Street, was the old Apollo Hall, where the first
Philharmonic concerts took place. In those early days of the German
music--days which followed the City Hotel epoch and the Garcia
opera--people were so unaccustomed to the proprieties of the
concert-room that the Easy Chair has even known some persons to
whisper and giggle during the performance of the finest symphonies of
Beethoven and Mozart, and so excessively rude as to rustle out of the
hall before the last piece was ended.

Upon one such occasion it said to its neighbor, as they were coming