This opera has attracted large audiences wherever it has been represented, and has elicited much attention and criticism from the musical public. Dwight's _Journal of Music_, Boston, January 23d, contains the best review of its merits and defects which we have thus far chanced to meet. Mr. Dwight gives M. Gounod ample credit for the good judgment, common sense, science, taste, poetic feeling, rich and highly dramatic orchestration, ingenious musical characterization of individuals and situations, and the many passages of beautiful music found in this elaborate work, but denies to him the _highest_ inspiration, the spontaneity of genius, and the attainment of any very lofty ideal in the production of continuous, elevated, and soul-entrancing melodies. We think this a pretty fair statement of the facts in the case. Mr. Dwight, however, says: 'Not even Mozart in 'Don Juan' had so great a subject;' and in this connection we feel compelled to offer a few remarks. We think every great composer owes it to his own God-gift, and to the human beings whom he is to influence, not to select intrinsically repulsive subjects, and such have we found both 'Don Juan' and 'Faust.' Now we are not morbidly fastidious, and we well know the freedom that must be accorded to art, that it may have ample scope and range in the delineation of human feeling and romantic situation; but when we see a representation of 'Don Juan,' we instinctively strive to ignore the plot, with its odious characters (the sensual Don, the coarse-minded servant, the unwomanly, man-seeking Elvira, the vengeful Anna, the insignificant Ottavio, the light-headed and shallow-hearted Zerlina), and live only in the beautiful music which the prodigality of genius has wasted upon so poor a theme. Not even _that_ libretto could degrade the pure, serious, and essentially innocent character of Mozart's conceptions; but, in turn, his refined musical conception has been unable to lift the subject from the mire of Da Ponte's delineation. We know that page after page has been written to unfold the mystic meanings and profound philosophy contained in the story, but our observation has been, that the effect of the whole upon pure minds is simply--disgust. The musical grandeur of the finale rarely saves its becoming ludicrous in the representation, and the _good joke_ of a life of unblushing immorality is in no way lessened by the appearance of demons, in whose existence half the world (at least of of opera goers) has ceased to believe. The 'Faust' is nearly, if not quite, as bad. The undisguised sensuality of Faust, both in Goethe's drama and in the operatic rendering, is such that it nearly destroys our sympathy with Margaret, and scenes that should be pathetic are either merely repulsive, or excite our indignation to such a degree that we 'turn all our tears to sparks of fire.'