nd generation, and in this same city of Gotham.
In the case of OLE BULL, however, there has been no call for _affected_
admiration. He has _compelled_ not only admiration but enthusiasm; not
indeed by mere artistical 'execution,' although in this he is acknowledged
to be preeminent, but by the creations of _genius_, which 'take the full
heart captive.' Let the distant reader imagine an audience of three
thousand persons awaiting in breathless expectance the entrance upon the
Park-stage of this great Master. The curtain rises, and after the lapse of
a moment, a tall manly person, with a frank, ingenuous expression of
countenance, emerges with an embarrassed salutation from the wing, and
with another somewhat less constrained, stands in front of the orchestra,
the focus of every eye and glass in that brilliant assemblage. Pausing for
a brief space, as if to collect himself, he raises his bow, and with a
slight motion, beckons to each member of the orchestra in turn, who 'start
into sound' at his bidding as if touched by the wand of ITHURIEL. When the
tide of harmony has reached its flood, and is gradually ebbing back to
fainter sounds, the Master raises his instrument to his shoulder and lays
his ear upon it, as if listening for his key-note amidst the tones that
are serpentining through his brain. When to the audience 'nothing lives
'twixt these and silence,' a strain which has at first a dying fall
imperceptibly swells on the ear. It is _the_ instrument, beyond all
peradventure; and from that moment you are 'all ear.' While you are
wondering why you never knew before that there was such a _volume_ of
sound in a violin, a passage of infinite pathos arrests your _heart_, and
you find your eyes moistening under its influence. It subsides into
tremulous tones that retreat farther and farther from the ear, until they
seem to come from a mile's distance; anon, they begin to approach again,
and swelling gradually upon the 'aching sense,' almost overpower you with
their fulness of melody. This transcendent effort of genius reminded us of
the phantasmagora, or 'magic lantern;' for what the lessening and
enlarging figures of that instrument are to the _eye_, OLE BULL'S magic
sounds are to the _ear_. We had intended to allude in detail to several of
the performances of this great Master; but we lack the requisite space. We
can only instance the 'Norwegian Rondo,' the 'Themes from BELLINI,' and
the 'Carnival at Venice,' as eminently j