Music has been the bane of my existence. My ear—the asinine organ that has since so extravagantly developed itself—was early noticed by a maiden aunt, and my first recollection is of her look of bland satisfaction as, with a shrill, little, piping, three-year-old voice, I edified an audience of spinsters, around a quilting-frame, with the strains of “Bonnie Doon.” Heaven pardon my poor old aunt for the wickedness of thus early encouraging a passion that has led to so many sins of temper, and, perhaps, to so many unuttered, but deep felt outrages upon her memory! I shall not go over the years of probation that elapsed from these first exhibitions of infantile vocalization, to the period of my perfect development as a young gentleman of acknowledged taste and talent, and my introduction, as a full-fledged connoisseur into the fashionable circles of ——. My passion for music clung to me. I had become learned in the science. If I walked of a warm evening with a young lady, it was, as I expressed it in upstart pedantry, in an _andante movement_. Slow and fast both became decidedly low terms, and I could only condescend to say in place of them, _adagio_ and _allegretto_. I had all the Italian musical terms, as contained in the elementary treatises, at my tongue’s end, and, in a practical, common sense community, would have been written down the ass that I really was, for the ridiculous and constant use I made of them. But in —— there was a fine field for my learned talk, and the obscurity and nonsense of my conversation got me up a reputation for musical science which at first flattered me, and engendered a vanity for which I have since suffered severe retribution. The nine days allowed for opening the eyes of young puppies having elapsed, mine were opened to a sense of my folly, and I by degrees broke myself of the habit I had adopted. At the period of my entrée into the society of ——, music was the great and leading idea. A religious and moral cycle had succeeded to a dissipated and drinking cycle, and dancing, wine, etc., being excluded from the leading houses, music was the only resource. At once I became a lion. “How beautifully Mr. Crotchet plays!” “Emma, my dear, come and look on; I want you to study Mr. Crotchet’s exquisite touch!” “Oh, how sweet!” These and kindred sounds issued from the lips of the witches in curls, lace and artificials, who gathered around me as I sat at Mrs. Flambeau’s piano, on the occasion of her first _soirée_. It was my debut, and is therefore memorable. I was playing a _sonata_ of Beethoven’s, which I soon found none of them comprehended. I thought of “pearls before swine,” but went on, working out the mysteries and the meaning of the composition for my own gratification. The witches, at the close, seemed rather weary, and could do little but simper and say “beautiful,” but the chief of them, one Madame Hecate, to whom tradition attached French parentage and critical taste, approached me and said—