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of music by Haydn, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and he studied the violoncello and the flute. His first composition, a concerto for flute and pianoforte, was written in 1847, when he was thirteen years old; and his next piece, a trio for two violins and violoncello, on a theme from "Robert le Diable," was written directly in parts, and not in score. There were political troubles at the University of Petrograd at that epoch, and so his mother put him into the Academy of Medicine and Surgery, to which he was admitted in 1850. Borodin studied zealously, and passed brilliant examinations. He pursued with special interest chemistry under the direction of Professor Zinine. All this time he cultivated music with eagerness, and often, as a young man, would play the 'cello from seven o'clock at night till seven o'clock in the morning. He was a great admirer of German music, and, according to his own expression, was thoroughly saturated with Mendelssohnism. His friends were German students, because he followed the wish of his mother, who feared the morals of his Russian colleagues; nevertheless, the influence of national music had already made itself felt in his soul, and he espoused the cause of the critic Seroff, when the latter defended Glinka against all the German composers. He wrote romances, but he kept them to himself; for he realized full well that professional musicians are suspicious of amateur music, and, furthermore, he feared that his professor in chemistry would regard him as frivolous. While he was at the academy, he wrote a three-voice fugue, such as are made in Germany, and also a scherzo in B minor for the pianoforte, which is distinctly Russian in character. In 1856 Borodin was admitted as physician of the Second Hospital of the Territorial Army. Offended by the cruelty shown the serfs by some of

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their officers, he turned gladly again toward music, and in that year he met Moussorgsky, who, at the age of seventeen, was an army officer, a dashing young blade, with aristocratic feet and hands, pleasingly combed hair, correct nails, fond of quoting French and playing selections from Italian operas. When he next saw him, in 1859, Moussorgsky had quitted the military service for the sake of making music his profession. At that time Schumann was unknown to Borodin. Moussorgsky talked to him with enthusiasm about Schumann's symphonies, played pieces of the same composer to him, and awakened in him the desire to write music of his own,-music that should be personal and at the same time national. In 1862 Borodin became acquainted with Balakireff, the father, counsellor, friend of the neoRussian School. Balakireff, although he was two years younger, became the real and sole teacher of Borodin. He taught him harmony according to the method of Rimsky-Korsakoff, and he explained to him musical form, and the technical construction of various German works. Up to this time Borodin had considered himself as an amateur, but in 1862 he began to compose with fervor a symphony and to take music seriously.

In 1858 Borodin travelled to complete his scientific studies. He was gone three years, and spent the greater part of the time at Heidelberg in laboratory work. He visited Italy, and he was for a very short time at Paris. During this period he wrote a sextet in D major for strings without double-bass, in Mendelssohnian style, for the purpose, as he said, of pleasing the Germans. This was played at Heidelberg in 1860. He returned to Petrograd in 1862, and was named assistant teacher of chemistry at the Academy, where he had studied.

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Nor did he cease to teach up to the day of his death.* He instructed chiefly in organic chemistry, and he had charge of the laboratory. He made many experiments, and wrote many articles on chemistry. These articles were published in the magazines of Russia and other countries. Among the most celebrated of his pamphlets are "Recherches sur le fluorure de benzol” (1862) and a work on "Solidification des aldehydes." During his latter years he was especially interested in experiments for physiological and medical use, on the transformation of nitrogen bodies; and he invented a nitrometer for the volumetric determination of nitrogen in organic compounds. He was named professor of chemistry in the Academy of Forestry in 1863. He was one of the most ardent advocates of the admission of women to higher education, and one of the three founders of a medical school for women in Petrograd. A silver crown on his coffin bore this inscription: "To the founder, the protector, and the defender of the School of Medicine for Women; to the guide and the friend of the student: the female graduates from 1872 to 1887."

The first measures of the Steppe-Sketch are reproduced, with other themes from his works, on mosaic with gold background behind his bust in bronze, which is in the convent of Alexander Newski on a bank of the Neva.

**

When Borodin visited Belgium in 1885-86, he wished that his first symphony should be played, "that the public might not be frightened," although the Countess de Mercy-Argenteaut and others preferred the second as being far more original. He wrote: "I am agreeably surprised that you prefer my second symphony to the first. This is rare. Ordinarily in Europe they prefer the first which is more interesting

On February 26, 1887, Borodin wrote to his wife, then in Moscow, that the next day he should go to a party. There would be music, and there would be a masked ball. He went in national costume, with red shirt and high boots. While he was talking, he fell without a cry and died without suffering as the result of aneurism.

She was a zealous propagandist in the Netherlands of the New Russian School. Her husband, chamberlain of Napoleon III., died in 1888, and she then left Belgium, her native land, and moved to Petrograd, where she died in 1890. See the entertaining gossip about this once famous beauty in "Les Femmes du Second Empire" by Frédéric Loliée, pp. 347-351 (Paris, 1906). Borodin wrote to his wife: 'She is an uncommonly gifted woman, charming in every respect, very remarkable by reason of her aptitudes and various talents. If she were not nearly 50 years old, one would necessarily fall in love with her."

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