IN 1850, when Madame Sontag reappeared as a vocalist in Paris, after a silence of twenty years, Adolphe Adam, the composer of "_Le Postillon de Lonjumeau_" and other popular music, wrote and published the following pleasant notice of her, in one of the Paris journals. It will be observed that it refers to Mr. Lumley, the once flourishing, but now broken-down Operatic manager. I thought proper to attack the privilege which has been granted to Mr. Lumley--but since it has been granted, I will say no more about it, but proceed to examine the merits of the artists whom Mr. Lumley has brought us. I have said that Lumley was clever and energetic--cleverer, perhaps, than you thought him. He is a better manager than you would suspect. For the last month, we have been fancying he was going to let us hear the Countess Rossi. I too believed it--but to-day I am convinced he has taken us all in. No! The young girl, whom I heard last Tuesday at the Conservatoire, is not, cannot be, the Countess Rossi. Ten years ago, at St. Petersburg, I had the honor of both seeing and hearing the Countess Rossi. In that lady I perfectly recognised the _cantatrice_ whom I had formerly admired and applauded at the Theatre Italien. But the _cantatrice_ whom I heard the other night cannot be the same. In the first place, she is much younger, more beautiful than the other, and has a great deal more talent. Now these are three qualities which would diminish, rather than increase, in the space of twenty years--unless we dated from the cradles of the prima donnas; and certainly the _cantatrice_, whom in 1830 we idolized in the _Barbiere_ and the _Cenerentola_, was already some years removed from infancy. Here is the true history of all this mystery. The Countess Rossi has, as it is reported, lost her fortune; but she is still rich in the possession of a daughter--a lovely girl, the very counterpart of her mother--as lovely and as graceful--German by her complexion and waving golden hair; Italian by her voice; French by her inimitable grace and distinction. This charming young girl, notwithstanding the high rank to which she was born--notwithstanding her brilliant education--did not hesitate for an instant to sacrifice herself for her family. She went to Lumley, and entreated him to engage her at his theatre. Imagine her sorrow, when he refused her! Mr. Lumley judiciously thought that, though talent might be hereditary in this family, name and reputation were not. Now what a manager cares most for, is a name--a name which fills at once his house and his money-drawers, and enables him to give (and pay) high salaries.