is very precious, indeed more precious than the
most complete and elaborate criticism written fifty years after the
occurrence would be. I cannot help thinking that Karasowski somewhat
exaggerates when he says that Chopin's pianoforte playing transported
the audience into a state of enthusiasm, and that no concert had a
brilliant success unless he took part in it. The biographer seems either
to trust too much to the fancy-coloured recollections of his informants,
or to allow himself to be carried away by his zeal for the exaltation of
his hero. At any rate, the tenor of the above-quoted notice, laudatory
as it is, and the absence of Chopin's name from other Warsaw letters,
do not remove the doubts which such eulogistic superlatives raise in the
mind of an unbiassed inquirer. But that Chopin, as a pianist and as
a musician generally, had attained a proficiency far beyond his years
becomes evident if we examine his compositions of that time, to which I
shall presently advert. And that he had risen into notoriety and saw his
talents appreciated cannot be doubted for a moment after what has been
said. Were further proof needed, we should find it in the fact that he
was selected to display the excellences of the aeolomelodicon when the
Emperor Alexander I, during his sojourn in Warsaw in 1825, [FOOTNOTE:
The Emperor Alexander opened the Diet at Warsaw on May 13, 1825, and
closed it on June 13.] expressed the wish to hear this instrument.
Chopin's performance is said to have pleased the august auditor, who, at
all events, rewarded the young musician with a diamond ring.

A greater event than either the concert or the performance before the
Emperor, in fact, THE event of the year 1825, was the publication of
Chopin's Opus 1. Only he who has experienced the delicious sensation of
seeing himself for the first time in print can realise what our young
author felt on this occasion. Before we examine this work, we will
give a passing glance at some less important early compositions of the
maestro which were published posthumously.

There is first of all a Polonaise in G sharp minor, said to be of
the year 1822, [FOOTNOTE: See No. 15 of the Posthumous Works in the
Breitkopf and Hartel edition.] but which, on account of the savoir-faire
and invention exhibited in it, I hold to be of a considerably later
time. Chopin's individuality, it is true, is here still in a rudimentary
state, chiefly manifested in the light-winged figuration; th