Chorley was an impressionable young man, in his twenty-third year, when he attended the Dublin festival, and so excited did he become over Paganini's performances, that he gave vent to his feelings in verse. That poem he now inserted in the _Athenæum_, "as a farewell to one whose like we shall never hear again!" There are really fine thoughts in the poem, and, though too long to quote in its entirety, a few stanzas may well be rescued from the periodical in which they are buried. O Paganini!--most undoubted king Of St. Cecilia's flock, alive or dead, Whether their pasture be of pipe, or string, Or mighty organ, which doth overspread Ancient Cathedral aisles with flood of sound,-- In all the wizard craft, matured by labour, That doth the spirit move, delight, astound, Thou hast no peer--thou hast not even a neighbour, In the long lapse of years from Tubal Cain to Weber. Sages have said, who read the book of night, That once each hundred years some meteor flares Across the startled heavens with brilliant flight, Making strange tumults in the land of stars; And, 'mid the realm of constellations vast, In steady splendour ever rolling on, Sweeps far and wide with fierce and furious haste, Rushing from pole to distant pole anon; And, like the monarch's ghost--"'Tis here--'tis there--'tis gone!" Thou dost to these, the meteor-born, belong, O mighty monarch of the strings and bow! And though it were to do sweet Cupid wrong To call thee else like him--yet on thy brow, And in thy curved lips and flashing eyes, His clearest seal hath god-like Genius set, Who bade thee from the common herd arise And win thyself a crown--nor ever yet Hath Art her votary graced with brighter coronet. O that a stately temple might be reared On some wide plain--and open to the sky-- Where all the great, the gifted, the revered Side close to side, ensepulchred might lie! And there, where many a breeze at evening's close In solemn dirge around their tomb should sweep, Should all the sons of melody repose, That pilgrims from afar might come and weep, And by their sainted dust a silent vigil keep! And there together in renown should rest, The Italian minstrel of the broken heart![29] And he whose Requiem for a spirit blest Was his own dirge--too early lost Mozart! And he of the Messiah--and the flight Of Israel's children from their bonds abhorred, When God was cloud by day, and fire by night! And he, who sung of darkness, at one word Bursting to light--and Earth created by its Lord!