We shall never see the six harps again, for Garnier, instead of reproducing exactly the placing of the orchestra in the old Opera, managed so well in the new one that they are unable to put in the six harps of old or the four drums with which Meyerbeer got such surprising effects in _Robert_ and _Le Prophete_.

I believe, however, that recent improvements have averted this disaster in a certain measure, and that there is now a place for the drums.

But we shall never hear the six harps again.
We must say something of the genesis of Meyerbeer's works, for in many instances this was curious and few people know about it.
II We might like to see works spring from the author's brain as complete as Minerva was when she sprang from Jove's, but that is infrequently the case.

When we study the long series of operas which Gluck wrote, we are surprised to meet some things which we recognize as having seen before in the masterpieces which immortalize his name.

And often the music is adapted to entirely different situations in the changed form.