Grétry of Mozart, who, he said, had put the statue in the orchestra and the pedestal on the stage. Handel, who said his cook was more of a musician than Gluck. Rossini, who vowed that Weber’s music gave him a stomach-ache. But the antipathy of the two latter to Gluck and Weber I believe to be due to quite another reason--a natural inability in these two comfortable portly gentlemen to understand the point of view of the two men of heart and sensibility. This deliberately obstinate attitude of Lesueur towards Beethoven opened my eyes to the utter worthlessness of his conservative tenets, and from that moment I left the broad, smooth road wherein he had guided my footsteps, for a hard and thorny way over hedges and ditches, hills and valleys. But I could not hurt the old man by my apostasy, so did my best to dissimulate my change of mind, and he only found it out long after, on hearing a composition I had never shewn him. It was just at this time that I set out on my treadmill round as critic for the papers. Ferrand, Cazalès and de Carné--well-known political names--agreed to start a periodical to air their views, which they called _Révue Européenne_, and Ferrand suggested that I should undertake the musical correspondence. “But I can’t write,” I objected; “my prose is simply detestable. And, besides----” “No, it is not,” said Ferrand; “have I not got your letters? You will soon be knocked into shape. Besides, we shall revise what you write before it is printed. Come along to de Carné and hear all about it.” What a weapon this writing for the press would be wherewith to defend truth and beauty in art! So, ignorant of the web of fate I was throwing around my own shoulders, I smiled innocently and walked straight into the meshes. I was likely to be diffident of my writing powers, for, once before, being furious at the attacks made upon Gluck by the Rossini faction, I asked M. Michaud, of the _Quotidienne_, to let me reply. He consented, and I said to myself, gaily: “Now, you brutes, I have got you; I’ll smite you hip and thigh!” But I smote no one and nothing. My utter ignorance of journalism, of the ways of the world, of press etiquette and my untamed musical passions, landed me in a regular bog. My article went far beyond the bounds of newspaper warfare, and M. Michaud’s hair stood on end. “But, my dear fellow, you know, I cannot possibly publish a thing like that. You are pulling people’s houses down about their ears. Take it back and whittle it down a bit.” But I was too lazy and too disgusted, so there it ended. This laziness of mine does not apply to composition, which comes naturally to me. Hour after hour I labour at a score, sometimes for eight hours at a time; no work is too minute, no pains too great.