something related to it; and in this manner he proceeds to the end of a piece, so softly, so gently, and gradually, that no leap, or harsh transition is to be felt; and yet no bar (I may almost say, no part of a bar,) is like another. With him, every transition was required to have a connexion with the preceding idea, and appears to be a necessary consequence of it. He knew not, or rather he disdained those sudden sallies, by which many composers atteinpt to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatics, the advances are so soft and tender, that we scarcely perceive their distances, though often very great."

"In other departments he had rivals; but in the fugue, and all the kinds of canon and counterpoint related to it, he stands quite alone, and so alone, that all around him, is, as it were, desert and void.

It (his fugue) fulfils all the conditions which we are otherwise accustomed to demand, only of more free species of composition. A highly characteristic theme, an uninterrupted principal melody, wholly derived from it, and equally characteristic from the beginning to the end; not mere accompaniment in the other parts, but in each of them an independent melody, according with the others, also from the beginning to the end; freedom, lightness, and fluency in the progress of the whole, inexhaustible variety of modulation combined with perfect purity; the exclusion of every arbitrary note, not necessarily belonging to the whole; unity and diversity in the style, rhythmus, and measure; and lastly, a life diffused through the whole, so that it sometimes appears to the performer or hearer, as if every single note were animated; these are the properties of Bach's fugue,— properties which excite admiration and astonishment in every judge, who knows what a mass of intellectual energy is required for the production of such works. I must say still more. All Bach's fugues, composed in the years of his maturity, have the above-mentioned properties in common; they are all endowed with equally great excellencies, but each in a different manner. Each has his own precisely defined character; and dependent upon that, its own turns in melody and harmony. When we know and can perform one, we really know only one, and can perform but one; whereas we know and can play whole folios full of fugues by other com. posers of Bach's time, as soon as we have comprehended and rendered familiar to our hand, the turns of a single one.

"In musical parties, where quartettes or other fuller pieces of instrumental music were performed, he took pleasure in playing the tenor. With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the middle of the harmony, whence he could both hear and enjoy it, on both sides. When an oppor. tunity offered, in such parties, he sometimes accompanied a trio or other pieces on the harpsichord. If he was in a cheerful mood, and knew that the composer of the piece, if present, would not take it amiss, he used to make extempore out of the figured bass a new trio, or of three single parts a quartette. These, however, are the only cases in which he proved to others how strong he was.

"He was fond of hearing the music of other composers. If he heard in a church a fugue for a full orchestra, and one of his two eldest sons stood near him, he always, as soon as he had heard the introduction to the theme, said beforehand what the composer ought to introduce, and what possibly might be introduced. If the composer had performed his work well, what he had said happened; then he rejoiced, and jogged his son to make him observe it."

He did not publish a work till he was forty years of age. He never laid aside the critical file through all his life, so that an edition of his works, accompanied by his own corrections, would be the finest study for the musician.

This severe ideal standard, and unwearied application in realizing it, made his whole life a progress, and the epithet old, which too often brings to our minds associations of indolence or decay, was for him the title of honour. It is noble and imposing when Frederic the Second says to his courtiers, "with a kind of agita. tion, Gentlemen, Old Bach has come.""

"He laboured for himself, like every true genius; he fulfilled his own wish, satisfied his own taste, chose his subjects according to his own opinion, and lastly, derived the most pleasure from nis own approbation. The applause of connoisseurs could not then fail him, and, in fact, never did fail him. How else could a real work of art be produced? The artist, who endeavours to make his works so as to suit some particular class of amateurs, either has no genius, or abuses it. To follow the prevailing aste of the many, needs, at the most, some dexterity in a very partial manner of *reating tones. Artists of this description may compared to

the mechanic, who must also make his goods so that his customers cau make use of them. Bach never submitted to such conditions. He thought the artist may form the public, but that the public does not form the artist."

But it would please me best, if I could print here the whole of the concluding chapter of this little book. It shows a fulness and depth of feeling, objects are seen from a high platform of culture, which make it invaluable to those of us who are groping in a denser atmosphere after the beautiful. It is a slight scroll, which implies ages of the noblest effort, and so clear a perception of laws, that its expression, if excessive in the particular, is never extravagant on the whole; a true and worthy outpouring of homage, so true that its most technical details suggest the canons by which all the various exhibitions of man's genius are, to be viewed, and silences, with silver clarion tone, the barking of partial and exclusive connoisseurship. The person who should republish such a book in this country would be truly a benefactor. Both this and the Life of Handel I have seen only in the London edition. The latter is probably out of print; but the substance of it, or rather the only pregnant traits from it have been given here. This life of Bach should be read, as its great subject should be viewed, as a whole.

The entertaining memoir of Beethoven by Ries and Wegeler has been, in some measure, made known to us through the English periodicals. I have never seen the book myself. That to which I shall refer is the life of Beethoven by Schindler, to whom Beethoven confided the task of writing it, in case of the failure of another friend, whom he somewhat preferred.

Schindler, if inadequate to take an observation of his subject from any very high point of view, has the merit of simplicity, fidelity, strict accuracy according to his power of discerning, and a devout reverence both for the art, and this greatest ex emplar of the art. He is one of those devout Germans who can

cling for so many years to a single flower, nor feel that they have rified all its sweets. There are in Rome, Germans who give their lives to copy the great masters in the art of painting, nor ever feel that they can get deep enough into knowledge of the beauty already produced to pass out into reproduction. They would never weary through the still night of tending the lights for the grand Mass. Schindler is of this stamp ; a patient stu dent, most faithful, and, those of more electric natures will per. haps say, a little dull.

He is very indignant at the more sprightly sketches of Ries and Bettina Brentano. Ries, indeed, is probably inaccurato iz detail, yet there is a truth in the whole impression received from him. It was in the first fervour of his youth that he knew Beethoven; he was afterwards long separated from him; in his book we must expect to see rather Ries, under the influence of Beethoven, than the master's self. Yet there is always deeper truth in this manifestation of life through life, if we can look at it aright than in any attempt at an exact copy of the original. Let only the reader read poetically, and Germany by Madame de Staël, Wallenstein by Schiller, Beethoven by Ries, are not the less true for being inaccurate. It is the same as with the Madonna by Guido, or by Murillo.

As for Bettina, it was evident to every discerning reader tha the great man never talked so; the whole narration is overflowed with Bettina rose-colour. Schindler grimly says, the good Bettina makes him appear as a Word Hero; and we cannot but for a moment share his contempt, as we admire the granite lacon. ism of Beethoven's real style, which is beyond any other, the short hand of Genius. Yet "the good Bettina" gives us the soul of the matter. Her description of his manner of seizing a melody and then gathering together from every side all that belonged tr it, and the saying, "other men are touched by something good Artists are fiery; they do not weep," are Beethoven's, whethe

t

he really said them or not. "You say that Shakspeare never meant to express this! What then? his genius meant it!"

The impression Schindler gives of Beethoven differs from that given by Ries or Bettina only in this, that the giant is seen through uncoloured glass; the lineaments are the same in all tho three memoirs.

The direction left by Beethoven himself to his biographer is as follows. "Tell the truth with severe fidelity of me and all connected with me, without regard to whom it may hit, whether others or myself."

He was bora 17th Dec. 1770. It is pleasing to the fancy to know that his mother's name was Maria Magdalena. She died when he was seventeen, so that a cabalistic number repeats itself the magical three times in the very first statement of his destiny. The first thirty years of his life were all sunshine. His genius was carly acknowledged, and princely friends enabled him give it free play, by providing for his simple wants in daily ife. Notwithstanding his uncompromising democracy, which, rom the earliest period, paid no regard to rank and power, but insisted that those he met should show themselves worthy as men and citizens, before he would have anything to do with them, he was received with joy into the highest circles of Vienna. Van Swieten, the emperor's physician, one of those Germans, who,

er the labors of the day, find rest in giving the whole night to ¡asic, and who was so situated that he could collect round him all that was best in the art, was one of his firmest friends. Prince and Princess Lichnowsky constituted themselves his foster-paents, and were not to be deterred from their wise and tender care by the often perverse and impetuous conduct of their adopted on, who indeed tried them severely, for he was (ein gewaltig atur) "a vehement nature," that broke through all limits and lways had to run his head against a barrier, before he could be mvinced of its existence. Of the princess, Beethoven says:

"With love like that of a grandmother, she sought to educato and foster me, which she carried so far as often to come near having a glass bell put over me, lest somewhat unworthy should touch or even breathe on me." Their house is described as "eine freihafen der Humanitat und feinem sitte," the home of all that is genial, noble and refined.

In these first years, the displays of his uncompromising naturo affect us with delight, for they have not yet that hue of tragedy, which they assumed after he was brought more decidedly into opposition with the world. Here wildly great and free, as afterwards sternly and disdainfully so, he is, waxing or waning, still the same orb; here more fairly, there more pathetically noble.

He early took the resolution, by which he held fast through life, "against criticisms or attacks of any kind, so long as they did not touch his honour, but were aimed solely at his artist-life, never to defend himself. He was not indifferent to the opinion of the good, but ignored as much as possible the assaults of the bad, even when they went so far as to appoint hir. a place in the mad house." For that vein in human nature, which has flowed unexhausted ever since the days of "I am not mad, most noble Festus," making men class as magic or madness all that surpasses the range of their comprehension and culture, manifested itself in full energy among the contemporaries of Beethoven. When

he published one of his greatest works, the critics declared him now (in the very meridian of his genius) ripe for the mad-house." For why? "We do not understand it; we never had such thoughts; we cannot even read and execute them." Ah men! alinost your ingratitude doth at times convince that you are wholly unworthy the visitations of the Divine!

But Beethoven" was an artist-nature;" he had his work to do, and could not stop to weep, either pitying or indignant tears. "If it amuses those people to say or to write such things of me, 23.