At this point of development, the instrument was taken up by Messrs. Mason and Hamlin, who have covered it with improvements, and rendered it one of the most pleasing musical instruments in the possession of mankind. When we remarked above, that the American piano was the best in the world, we only expressed the opinion of others; but now that we assert the superiority of the American cabinet organ over similar instruments made in London and Paris, we are communicating knowledge of our own. Indeed, the superiority is so marked that it is apparent to the merest tyro in music. During the year 1866, the number of these instruments produced in the United States by the twenty-five manufacturers was about fifteen thousand, which were sold for one million six hundred thousand dollars, or a little more than one hundred dollars each. Messrs. Mason and Hamlin, who manufacture one fourth of the whole number, produce thirty-five kinds, varying in power, compass, and decoration, and in price from seventy-five dollars to twelve hundred. In the new towns of the great West, the cabinet organ is usually the first instrument of music to arrive, and, of late years, it takes its place with the piano in the fashionable drawing-rooms of the Atlantic States. Few Americans, we presume, expected that the department of the Paris Exposition in which the United States should most surpass other nations would be that appropriated to musical instruments. Even our cornets and bugles are highly commended in Paris. The cabinet organs, according to several correspondents, are much admired. We can hardly credit the assertion of an intelligent correspondent of the Tribune, that the superiority of the American pianos is not "questioned" by Erard, Pleyel, and Hertz, but we can well believe that it is acknowledged by the great players congregated at Paris. The aged Rossini is reported to have said, after listening to an American piano, "It is like a nightingale cooing in a thunder-storm." AN EMBER-PICTURE. How strange are the freaks of memory! The lessons of life we forget, While a trifle, a trick of color, In the wonderful web is set,-- Set by some mordant of fancy, And, despite the wear and tear Of time or distance or trouble, Insists on its right to be there. A chance had brought us together; Our talk was of matters of course; We were nothing, one to the other, But a short half-hour's resource. We spoke of French acting and actors, And their easy, natural way,-- Of the weather, for it was raining As we drove home from the play. We debated the social nothings Men take such pains to discuss; The thunderous rumors of battle Were silent the while for us. Arrived at her door, we left her With a drippingly hurried adieu, And our wheels went crunching the gravel Of the oak-darkened avenue.