In 1840, the year of Paganini's death, three operas of Donizetti saw light, "La Fille du Régiment," "Lucrezia Borgia," and "La Favorita." In the next year Auber's "Les Diamants de la Couronne" was performed; and a twelve-year-old musician, newly arrived from Moscow, was given an opportunity of playing the piano to Liszt, and of being patted on the head, while he listened to words of warm encouragement. And the name of the boy-pianist? Anton Rubinstein, who died more than twelve years ago, at the age of sixty-five. In 1842, the year in which Massenet was born, Meyerbeer's opera "Le Prophète" was finished, which was destined not to be produced at the Grand Opera House till seven years later. In 1843 Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" was brought out, and in the following year Flotow's "Stradella" and Félicien David's grand ode-symphony "Désert." It saw, moreover, the completion by Richard Wagner of "Der Fliegende Holländer," as the next year, in which Tom Hood died, saw that of "Tannhäuser." In 1847 the Parisian public witnessed for the first time Flotow's "Martha," while in the last year of Garcia's sojourn in the capital, Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor" and Wagner's "Lohengrin" were finished; Offenbach was appointed _chef d'orchestre_ at the Théâtre Français (this being long before "La Grande Duchesse" and "Madame Favart" had been set down on paper); Gounod was still in his twenties, and had not yet even composed his first opera, while "Faust" was not to be brought out for eleven, and "Roméo et Juliette" for just on twenty years. As for Bizet, he was a mere boy of ten. Allusion has already been made to George Sand, Henry Mürger, and Alfred de Musset. One must add to the literary circle of that time such personalities as these: Balzac, who first tasted success with the publication of 'Les Derniers Chouans,' about a year after Señor Garcia had arrived from Mexico, soon following this up with the earliest of his great works, 'La Peau de Chagrin'; Théophile Gautier, whose first long poem, 'Albertus,' was published about the same time, to be followed, in 1835, by the celebrated novel, 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' with its defiant preface; Alfred de Vigny, whom Manuel Garcia, as a young man of twenty-five, saw abandon for good in 1830 the publication of his exquisite poetry, and confine himself after that date to works in prose alone.