Here, then, a love of that beautiful art, music, since the days, hundreds of years ago, of the courtly _menestrels_, has been a conspicuous trait in the character of the people. Of course, in leaving Paris and France, and crossing the seas,--first to Canada, and then to Louisiana,--the Frenchman carried with him that same love of the arts, particularly that of music, that he felt in fatherland. And so New Orleans, which in time grew to be the metropolis of Louisiana, became also to these French settlers the new Paris. In fact, even for years after the State was admitted into the Union, and although meanwhile immigration had set in from other parts of the country, New Orleans remained of the French "Frenchy." The great wealth of many of its citizens, their gayety, their elegant and luxurious mode of living, their quick susceptibility to the charms of music, their generous patronage of general art, together with certain forms of divine worship observed by a large number of them,--all this served for a long time to remind one of the magnificent capital of France. The opera, with its ravishing music, its romance of sentiment and incident, its resplendent scenery, and the rich costumes and brilliant delineations of its actors,--all so well calculated to charm a people of luxurious tastes,--has always been generously patronized in New Orleans; and so, too, have been the other forms of musical presentation. Amateur musicians have never been scarce there: such persons, pursuing their studies, not with a pecuniary view (being in easy circumstances), but simply from a love of music, have ever found congenial association in the city's many cultured circles; while many others, who, although ardently loving music for its own sake, were yet forced by less fortunate circumstances to seek support in discoursing it to others,--these have always found ready and substantial recognition in this music-loving city.