“Those of our readers who have heard the most eminent of violin performers, eminent for strength, sweetness, and purity of tone, will hear all these requisites to absolute perfection in Paganini. They who have heard difficulties in the way of execution overcome, which it seemed bordering on desperation to attempt, may tax their faculties to invent new enormities, and they will not only fall short in their imaginings, but he will perform all, and more, not merely without show of effort, but as if they were a fanciful prelude, or pastime, to some laborious undertaking. In the course of the concert given last evening at the Opera-house, he performed four pieces, in which, we conceive, he exhibited every feature that the instrument can display, and many more than it has hitherto been thought capable of. The first was a concerto of the most florid character, varied with movements of exquisite expression and tenderness. The second was a composition in the minor key, and which, for its own intrinsic merit, made the strongest appeal to our feelings. In it he satisfied at once any doubt we might have that he would prove unequal in a _cantabile_.—His expression in this piece was the most genuine display of passionate feeling we ever remember to have heard on any instrument. It required no explanatory chorus, no voice of accompaniment—it was the perfection of musical sighing, and gentle sorrow. The third performance was a military rondo, the whole of which he played upon one string—the fourth. In it he introduced the subject of ‘_Non più andrai_’ from _Figaro_, with variations of the most astonishing description. He introduced passages of imitation in octaves, with wonderful rapidity and neatness, and with a purity of tone that was delicious. The precision, too, with which he dashed from the lowest note of the string to the opposite extreme, and all with the utmost indifference of manner, was one of the commonest of his achievements. The last piece, which was a brilliant rondo, he played entirely without the orchestral accompaniment; and this was the triumph of the evening. It consisted of an air with variations, crowded with enharmonic passages. The subject, now legato, and now hurried, was at one time attended with a florid, and at another with a _pizzicato_ accompaniment; and, as he drew to a close, he accelerated his time to a _prestissimo, the air and the pizzicato moving on together_, and ending with a _rapid shake upon the latter_! The violin-player will fully appreciate the difficulty of this achievement. It is scarcely necessary to state that the audience were _satisfied_. The applause was showered upon him in torrents.” Another commentator thus expresses himself:—