During the same week we find the Musical Union giving a Grand Matinée at Willis's Rooms, with vocal music, sung by Mme. Viardot-Garcia and Mdlle. de Mendi: instrumentalists, Molique, Sainton, Hermann, Deloffre, Hill, Mellon, and Piatti; pianist, Charles Hallé; accompanist, Benedict. Soon after this Thalberg gives a recital; while "John Parry, the laughter-provoking and ingenious," holds his concert in the Hanover Square Rooms. "His new 'whimsy' (for he is the Hood of musicians in his amount of whim, and whim cannot exist without genius) is 'The Rehearsal of an Operetta.'" There is also a notice of Exeter Hall: "Mr Hullah's choralists celebrated the anniversary of laying the first stone of their new music hall with the best miscellaneous English concert that one recollects.... Mr Sims Reeves, who seems wisely taking the tide at the flood, and by increased care justifying his increasing success, was an attraction, singing among other music Purcell's 'Come if you dare,' with spirit enough to 'rouse a shire.'" Then there is a season of Promenade Concerts at the Royal Adelaide Gallery, Strand, not to mention "M. Jullien and his unrivalled band" at the Royal Surrey Gardens. 'Musical Gossip' of July 1848 contains some items, the first of which cannot fail to bring an ironical smile to the face of modern composers. "We have year after year adverted to the unsatisfactory state of the law of musical copyright in this country." "It is now stated that Mdlle. Lind has at last declined to take an engagement at Norwich: the sum of £1000 was offered her." "A correspondent at Florence writes: 'Old Rossini is here enjoying his well-earned _otium cum dignitate_.'" Now let us turn to operatic matters in that far-off season of 1848. Mr Delafield had undertaken to finance the Covent Garden venture, for which a bevy of great names had been secured. As in the preceding season Garcia's pupil, Jenny Lind, had been the principal star at Her Majesty's, so in this year another pupil, his sister, Pauline Viardot, was the star at the rival establishment. In addition to her there were Alboni, Persiani, Grisi, Mario, Ronconi, Marini, and Castellani. Unhappily, things did not run as smoothly as might have been wished: Michael Costa and Delafield were at loggerheads, and in July, soon after Garcia arrived from Paris, a financial crisis occurred which was only averted by the assistance of Gye.