table-looking audiences, men and women, I have ever seen. Among the
speakers of the evening were Cobden and Fox. Cobden in physiognomy and
appearance might almost pass for an American, and has a certain New
England sharpness and shrewdness in his way of dealing with a subject. His
address was argumentative, yet there was a certain popular clearness about
it, a fertility of familiar illustration, and an earnest feeling, which
made it uncommonly impressive. Fox is one of the most fluent and ingenious
speakers I ever heard in a popular assembly. Both were listened to by an
audience which seemed to hang on every word that fell from their lips.

The musical world here are talking about Colman's improvement in the
piano. I have seen the instrument which the inventor brought out from
America. It is furnished with a row of brass reeds, like those of the
instrument called the Seraphine. These take up the sound made by the
string of the piano, and prolong it to any degree which is desired. It is
a splicing of the sounds of one instrument upon another. Yet if the
invention were to be left where it is, in Colman's instrument, it could
not succeed with the public. The notes of the reeds are too harsh and
nasal, and want the sweetness and mellowness of tone which belong to the
string of the piano.

At present the invention is in the hands of Mr. Rand, the portrait
painter, a countryman of ours, who is one of the most ingenious
mechanicians in the world. He has improved the tones of the reeds till
they rival, in softness and fullness, those of the strings, and, in fact,
can hardly be distinguished from them, so that the sounds of the two
instruments run into one another without any apparent difference. Mr. Rand
has contrived three or four different machines for making the reeds with
dispatch and precision; and if the difficulty of keeping the strings,
which are undergoing a constant relaxation, in perfect unison with the
reeds can be overcome, I see nothing to prevent the most complete and
brilliant success.

Letter XXVII.

Changes in Paris.

Paris, _August_ 9, 1845.

My last letter was dated at London, in my passage across England. I have
been nearly a fortnight in Paris. In ten years I find a considerable
change in the external aspect of this great capital. The streets are
cleaner, in many of them sidewalks have been made, not always the widest
to be sure, but smoothly floored with the asphaltum of Seyssel, which