The evening parties, called soirées, are certainly the most pleasant meetings the metropolis affords The term lately has been used to indicate small musical performances to which the public are admitted, but which soon grew into crowded concerts. What I would speak of are private meetings at the houses of distinguished persons in science and art, and which are open to the literati on being introduced by a friend. Mr. Martin, the celebrated painter of Belshazzar's Feast and the Fall of Nineveh, is a man of superlative genius, and draws around him, in his soirées, the most celebrated persons of the age. The evening I was at his house... I was charmed by the sound of a new instrument which Professor Wheatstone had invented....