there is in it a warmth, a dramatic life, and a strength in
   all its effects, which are decidedly not in the style of
   Mozart.  But Soliva, who is a young man and full of the
   warmest admiration for Mozart, has imbibed certain tints of
   his colouring. 
The rest is too outrageously ridiculous to be quoted.  Whatever Beyle’s purely literary merits and his achievements in fiction may be, I quite agree with Berlioz, who remarks, a propos of this gentleman’s Vie de Rossini, that he writes “les plus irritantes stupidites sur la musique, dont il croyait avoir le secret.”  To which cutting dictum may be added a no less cutting one of M. Lavoix fils, who, although calling Beyle an “ecrivain d’esprit,” applies to him the appellation of “fanfaron d’ignorance en musique.”  I would go a step farther than either of these writers.  Beyle is an ignorant braggart, not only in music, but in art generally, and such esprit as his art criticisms exhibit would be even more common than it unfortunately now is, if he were oftener equalled in conceit and arrogance.  The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an object that the reader will excuse the digression, which, moreover, may show what miserable instruments a poor biographer has sometimes to make use of.  Another informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more trustworthy, furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw.  The writer in question disapproves of the Italian master’s drill-method in teaching singing, and says that as a composer his power of invention was inferior to his power of construction; and, further, that he was acquainted with the scores of the best musicians of all times, and an expert in accompanying on the pianoforte.  As Elsner, Zywny, and the pianist and composer Javurek have already been introduced to the reader, I shall advert only to one other of the older Warsaw musicians—­namely, Charles Kurpinski, the most talented and influential native composer then living in Poland.  To him and Elsner is chiefly due the progress which Polish music made in the first thirty years of this century.  Kurpinski came to Warsaw in 1810, was appointed second conductor at the National Opera-house, afterwards rose to the position of first conductor, was nominated maitre de chapelle de la cour de Varsovie, was made a Knight of the St. Stanislas Order, &c.  He is said to have learnt composition by diligently studying Mozart’s scores, and in 1811 began to supply the theatre with dramatic works.  Besides masses, symphonies, &c., he composed twenty-four operas, and published also some theoretical works and a sketch of the history of the Polish opera.  Kurpinski was by nature endowed with fine musical qualities, uniting sensibility and energy with easy productivity.  Chopin did homage to his distinguished countryman in introducing into his Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais, Op. 13, a theme of Kurpinski’s.  Two younger men, both born in 1800, must yet be mentioned to compete the picture.  One of them, Moritz Ernemann, a