In addition he was lacking in taste.
At the time they affected a dreadful mannerism of always stopping on the next to the last note of a passage, whether or not it was associated with a mute syllable.

This mannerism had no purpose beyond indicating to the audience the end of a passage and giving the claque the signal to applaud.

Offenbach did not belong to that heroic strain to which success is the least of its cares.

So he adopted this mannerism, and often his ingeniously turned and charming couplets are ruined by this silly absurdity now gone out of fashion.
Furthermore, he wrote badly, for his early education was neglected.

If the _Tales of Hoffman_ shows traces of a practised pen, it is because Guiraud finished the score and went out of his way to remedy some of the author's mistakes.