e of Louisiana, originally settled by
the French, and until 1812, when it became a State of the American
Union, contained a population naturally distinguished by the same
general characteristics as those which marked the people of France.
The Frenchman has for a long time been proverbially a devotee of the
fine arts; and of these that gay and brilliant city Paris--which has
ever been to its enamoured citizens not only all France, but all the
world--became for France the centre.

Here, then, a love of that beautiful art, music, since the days,
hundreds of years ago, of the courtly _menestrels_, has been a
conspicuous trait in the character of the people. Of course, in
leaving Paris and France, and crossing the seas,--first to Canada, and
then to Louisiana,--the Frenchman carried with him that same love of
the arts, particularly that of music, that he felt in fatherland. And
so New Orleans, which in time grew to be the metropolis of Louisiana,
became also to these French settlers the new Paris. In fact, even for
years after the State was admitted into the Union, and although
meanwhile immigration had set in from other parts of the country, New
Orleans remained of the French "Frenchy." The great wealth of many of
its citizens, their gayety, their elegant and luxurious mode of
living, their quick susceptibility to the charms of music, their
generous patronage of general art, together with certain forms of
divine worship observed by a large number of them,--all this served
for a long time to remind one of the magnificent capital of France.

The opera, with its ravishing music, its romance of sentiment and
incident, its resplendent scenery, and the rich costumes and brilliant
delineations of its actors,--all so well calculated to charm a people
of luxurious tastes,--has always been generously patronized in New
Orleans; and so, too, have been the other forms of musical
presentation. Amateur musicians have never been scarce there: such
persons, pursuing their studies, not with a pecuniary view (being in
easy circumstances), but simply from a love of music, have ever found
congenial association in the city's many cultured circles; while many
others, who, although ardently loving music for its own sake, were yet
forced by less fortunate circumstances to seek support in discoursing
it to others,--these have always found ready and substantial
recognition in this music-loving city.

But does all I have been saying apply to the co