* * * * *

EPIGRAM ON J.M.

Said Fortune to a common spit, "Your rust and grease I'll rid ye on, And make ye in a twinkling fit For Ireland's Sword of Gideon!"

In vain! what Nature meant for base All chance for good refuses; M. gave one gleam, then turned apace To dirtiest kitchen uses.



BEETHOVEN: HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

(From Original Sources.)

There is upon record a remark of Mozart—probably the greatest musical genius that ever lived—to this effect: that, if few had equalled him in his art, few had studied it with such persevering labor and such unremitting zeal. Every man who has attained high preeminence in Science, Literature, or Art, would confess the same. At all events, the greatest musical composers—Bach, Handel, Haydn, Gluck—are proofs that no degree of genius and natural aptitude for their art is sufficient without long-continued effort and exhaustive study of the best models of composition. And this is the moral to be drawn from Beethoven's early life.

"Voila Bonn! C'est une petite perle!" said the admiring Frenchwoman, as the Cologne steamboat rounded the point below the town, and she caught the first fair view of its bustling landing-places, its old wall, its quaint gables, and its antique cathedral spires. A pearl among the smaller German cities it is,—with most irregular streets, always neat and cleanly, noble historic and literary associations, jovial student-life, pleasant walks to the neighboring hills, delightful excursions to the Siebengebirge and Ahrthal,—reposing peacefully upon the left bank of the "green and rushing Rhine." Six hundred years ago, the Archbishop-Electors of Cologne, defeated in their long quarrel with the people of the city of perfumery, established their court at Bonn, and made it thenceforth the political capital of the Electorate. Having both the civil and ecclesiastical revenues at their command, the last Electors were able to sustain courts which vied in splendor with those of princes of far greater political power and pretensions. They could say, with the Preacher of old, "We builded us houses; we made us gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all manner of fruits"; for the huge palace, now the seat of the Frederick-William University, and Clemensruhe, now the College of Natural History, were erected by them early in the last century. Like the Preacher, too, "they got them men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts." Music they cherished with especial care: it gave splendor to the celebration of high mass in chapel or cathedral; it afforded an innocent and refined recreation, in the theatre and concert-room, to the Electors and their guests.

In the list of singers and musicians in the employ of Clemens Augustus, as printed in the Electoral Calendar for the years 1759-60, appears the name, "Ludwig van Beethoven, Bassist." We know little of him, and it is but a very probable conjecture that he was a native of Maestricht, in Holland. That he was more than an ordinary singer is proved by the position he held in the Chapel, and by the applause which he received for his performances as primo basso in certain of Mosigny's operas. He was, moreover, a good musician; for he had produced operas of his own composition, with fair success, and, upon the accession of Maximilian Frederick to the Electorate in 1761, he was raised to the position of Kapellmeister. He was already well advanced in life; for the same record bears the name of his son Johann, a tenor singer. He died in 1773, and was long afterward described by one who remembered him, as a short, stout-built man, with exceedingly lively eyes, who used to walk with great dignity to and from his dwelling in the Bonngasse, clad in the fashionable red cloak of the time. Thus, too, he was quite magnificently depicted by the court painter, Radoux, wearing a tasselled cap, and holding a sheet of music-paper in his hand. His wife—the Frau Kapellmeisterinn—born Josepha Poll—was not a helpmeet for him, being addicted to strong drink, and therefore, during her last years, placed in a convent in Cologne.

The Bonngasse, which runs Rhineward from the lower extremity of the Marktplatz, is, as the epithet gasse implies, not one of the principal streets of Bonn. Nor is it one of great length, notwithstanding the numbers upon its house-fronts range so high,—for the houses of the town are numbered in a single series, and not street by street. In 1770, the centre of the Bonngasse was also a central point for the music and musicians of Bonn. Kapellmeister Beethoven dwelt in No. 386, and the next house was the abode of the Ries family. The father was one of the Elector's chamber musicians; and his son Franz, a youth of fifteen, was already a member of the orchestra, and by his skill upon the violin gave promise of his future excellence. Thirty years afterward, his son became the pupil of the Beethoven in Vienna.

In No. 515, which is nearly opposite the house of Ries, lived the Salomons. Two of the sisters were singers in the Court Theatre, and the brother, Johann Peter, was a distinguished violinist. At a later period he emigrated to London, gained great applause as a virtuoso, established the concerts in which Haydn appeared as composer and director, and was one of the founders of the celebrated London Philharmonic Society.

It is common in Bonn to build two houses, one behind the other, upon the same piece of ground, leaving a small court between them,—access to that in the rear being obtained through the one which fronts upon the street. This was the case where the Salomons dwelt, and to the rear house, in November, 1767, Johann van Beethoven brought his newly married wife, Helena Keverich, of Coblentz, widow of Nicolas Laym, a former valet of the Elector.

It is near the close of 1770. Helena has experienced "the pleasing punishment that women bear," but "remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world." Her joy is the greater, because last year, in April, she buried, in less than a week after his birth, her first-born, Ludwig Maria,—as the name still stands upon the baptismal records of the parish of St. Remigius, with the names of Kapellmeister Beethoven, and the next-door neighbor, Frau Loher, as sponsors. This second-born is a strong, healthy child, and his baptism is recorded in the same parish-book, Dec. 17, 1770,—the day of, possibly the day after, his birth,—by the name of Ludwig. The Kapellmeister is again godfather, but Frau Gertrude Mueller, nee Baum, next door on the other side, is the godmother. The Beethovens had neither kith nor kin in Bonn; the families Ries and Salomon, their intimate friends, were Israelites; hence the appearance of the neighbors, Frauen Loher and Mueller, at the ceremony of baptism;—a strong corroborative evidence, that No. 515, Bonngasse, was the actual birth-place of Beethoven.

The child grew apace, and in manhood his earliest and proudest recollections, save of his mother, were of the love and affection lavished upon him, the only grandchild, by the Kapellmeister. He had just completed his third year when the old man died, and the bright sun which had shone upon his infancy, and left an ineffaceable impression upon the child's memory, was obscured. Johann van Beethoven had inherited his mother's failing, and its effects were soon visible in the poverty of the family. He left the Bonngasse for quarters in that house in the Rheingasse, near the upper steamboat-landing, which now erroneously bears the inscription, Ludwig van Beethovens Geburtshaus.

His small inheritance was soon squandered; his salary as singer was small, and at length even the portrait of his father went to the pawnbroker. In the April succeeding the Kapellmeister's death, the expenses of Johann's family were increased by the birth of another son,—Caspar Anton Carl; and to this event Dr. Wegeler attributes the unrelenting perseverance of the father in keeping little Ludwig from this time to his daily lessons upon the piano-forte. Both Wegeler and Burgomaster Windeck of Bonn, sixty years afterward, remembered how, as boys, visiting a playmate in another house across the small court, they often "saw little Louis, his labors and sorrows." Cecilia Fischer, too, a playmate of Beethoven in his early childhood, and living in the same house in her old age, "still saw the little boy standing upon a low footstool and practising his father's lessons," in tears.

What indications, if any, the child had given of remarkable musical genius, we do not know,—not one of the many anecdotes bearing upon this point having any trustworthy foundation in fact. Probably the father discovered in him that which awakened the hope of some time rivalling the then recent career of Leopold Mozart with little Wolfgang, or at least saw reason to expect as much success with his son as had rewarded the efforts of his neighbor Ries with his Franz; at all events, we have the testimony of Beethoven himself, that "already in his fourth year music became his principal employment,"—and this it continued to be to the end. Yet, as he grew older, his education in other respects was not neglected. He passed through the usual course of boys of his time, not destined for the universities, in the public schools of the city, even to the acquiring of some knowledge of Latin. The French language was, as it still is, a necessity to every person of the Rhine provinces above the rank of peasant; and Beethoven became able to converse in it with reasonable fluency, even after years of disuse and almost total loss of hearing. It has also been stated that he knew enough of English to read it; but this is more than doubtful. In fact, as a schoolboy, he made the usual progress,—no more, no less.

In music it was otherwise. The child Mozart seems alone to have equalled or surpassed the child Beethoven. Ludwig soon exhausted his father's musical resources, and became the pupil of Pfeiffer, chorist in the Electoral Orchestra, a genial and kind-hearted man, and so good a musician as afterward to be appointed band-master to a Bavarian regiment. Beethoven always held him in grateful and affectionate remembrance, and in the days of his prosperity in Vienna sent him pecuniary aid. His next teacher was Van der Eder, court organist,—a proof that the boy's progress was very rapid, as this must have been the highest school that Bonn could offer. With this master he studied the organ. When Van der Eder retired from office, his successor, Christian Gottlob Neefe, succeeded him also as instructor of his remarkable pupil.

Wegeler and Schindler, writing several years after the great composer's death, state, that, of these three instructors, he considered himself most indebted to Pfeiffer, declaring that he had profited little or nothing by his studies with Neefe, of whose severe criticisms upon his boyish efforts in composition he complained. These statements have hitherto been unquestioned. Without doubting the veracity of the two authors, it may well be asked, whether the great master may not have relied too much upon the impressions received in childhood, and thus unwittingly have done injustice to Neefe. The appointment of that musician as organist to the Electoral Court bears date February 15, 1781, when Ludwig had but just completed his tenth year, and the sixth year of his musical studies. These six years had been divided between three different instructors,—his father, Pfeiffer, and Van der Eder; and during the last part of the time, music could have been but the extra study of a schoolboy. That the two or three years, during which at the most he was a pupil of Pfeiffer, and that, too, when he was but six or eight years of age, were of more value to him in his artistic development than the years from the age of ten onward, during which he studied with Neefe, certainly seems an absurd idea. That the chorist may have laid a foundation for his future remarkable execution, and have fostered and developed his love for music, is very probable; but that the great Beethoven's marvellous powers in higher spheres of the art were in any great degree owing to him, we cannot credit. Happily, we have some data for forming a judgment upon this point, unknown both to Wegeler and Schindler, when they wrote.

Neefe was, if not a man of genius, of very respectable talents, a learned and accomplished organist and composer, as a violinist respectable, even in a corps which included Reicha, Romberg, Ries. He had been reared in the severe Saxon school of the Bachs, and before coming to Bonn had had much experience as music director of an operatic company. He knew the value of the maxim, Festina lente, and was wise enough to understand, that no lofty and enduring structure can be reared, unless the foundations are broad and deep,—that sound and exhaustive study of canon, fugue, and counterpoint is as necessary to the highest development of musical genius as mathematics, philosophy, and logic are to that of the scientific and literary man. He at once saw and appreciated the marvellous powers of Johann van Beethoven's son, and adopted a plan with him, whose aim was, not to make him a mere youthful prodigy, but a great musician and composer in manhood. That, with this end in view, he should have criticized the boy's crude compositions with some severity was perfectly natural; equally so that the petted and bepraised boy should have felt these criticisms keenly. But the severity of the master was no more than a necessary counterpoise to the injudicious praise of others. That Beethoven, however he may have spoken of Neefe to Wegeler and Schindler, did at times have a due consciousness of his obligations to his old master, is proved by a letter which he wrote to him from Vienna, during the first transports of joy and delight at finding himself the object of universal wonder and commendation in the musical circles of the great capital. He thanks Neefe for the counsels which had guided him in his studies, and adds, "Should I ever become a great man, it will in part be owing to you."

The following passage from an account of the virtuosos in the service of the Elector at Bonn, written in 1782, when Beethoven had been with Neefe but little more than a year, and which we unhesitatingly, attribute to the pen of Neefe himself, will give an idea of the course of instruction adopted by the master, and his hopes and expectations for the future of his pupil. It is, moreover, interesting, as being the first public notice of him who for half a century has exercised more pens than any other artist. The writer closes his list of musicians and singers thus:—

"Louis van Beethoven, son of the above-named tenorist, a boy of eleven years, and of most promising talents. He plays the piano-forte with great skill and power, reads exceedingly well at sight, and, to say all in a word, plays nearly the whole of Sebastian Bach's 'Wohltemperirtes Klavier,' placed in his hands by Herr Neefe. Whoever is acquainted with this collection of preludes and fugues in every key (which one can almost call the non plus ultra of music) knows well what this implies. Herr Neefe has also, so far as his other duties allowed, given him some instruction in thorough-bass. At present he is exercising him in composition, and for his encouragement has caused nine variations composed by him for the piano-forte upon a march[A] to be engraved at Mannheim. This young genius certainly deserves such assistance as will enable him to travel. He will assuredly become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, should he continue as he has begun.

[Footnote A: The variations upon a march by Dressler.]

"'Wem er geneigt, dem sendet der Vater der Menschen und Goetter Seinen Adler herab, traegt ihn zu himmlischen Hoeh'n und welches Haupt ihm gefaellt um das flicht er mit liebenden Haenden den Lorbeer.' Schiller."

In the mere grammar of musical composition the pupil required little of his master. We have Beethoven's own words to prove this, scrawled at the end of the thorough-bass exercises, afterward performed, when studying with Albrechtsberger. "Dear friends," he writes, "I have taken all this trouble, simply to be able to figure my basses correctly, and some time, perhaps, to instruct others. As to errors, I hardly needed to learn this for my own sake. From my childhood I have had so fine a musical sense, that I wrote correctly without knowing that it must be so, or could be otherwise."

Neefe's object, therefore,—as was Haydn's at a subsequent period,—was to give his pupil that mastery of musical form and of his instrument, which should enable him at once to perceive the value of a musical idea and its most appropriate treatment. The result was, that the tones of his piano-forte became to the youth a language in which his highest, deepest, subtilest musical ideas were expressed by his fingers as instantaneously and with as little thought of the mere style and manner of their expression as are the intellectual ideas of the thoroughly trained rhetorician in words.

The good effect of the course pursued by Neefe with his pupil is visible in the next published production—save a song or two—of the boy;—the

"Three Sonatas for the Piano-forte, composed and dedicated to the most Reverend Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, Maximilian Frederick, my most gracious Lord, by LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, Aged eleven years."

We cannot resist the temptation to add the comically bombastic Dedication of these Sonatas to the Elector, which may very possibly have been written by Neefe, who loved to see himself in print.

"DEDICATION

"MOST EXALTED!

"Already in my fourth year Music began to be the principal employment of my youth. Thus early acquainted with the Lovely Muse, who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, she won my love, and, as I oft have felt, gave me hers in return. I have now completed my eleventh year; and my Muse, in the hours consecrated to her, oft whispers to me, 'Try for once, and write down the harmonies in thy soul!'—'Eleven years!' thought I,—'and how should I carry the dignity of authorship? What would men in the art say?'—My timidity had nearly conquered. But my Muse willed it:—I obeyed and wrote.

"And now dare I, Most Illustrious! venture to lay the first fruits of my youthful labors at the steps of Thy throne? And dare I hope that Thou wilt deign to cast upon them the mild, paternal glance of Thy cheering approbation? Oh, yes! for Science and Art have ever found in Thee a wise patron and a magnanimous promoter, and germinating talent its prosperity under Thy kind, paternal care.

"Filled with this animating trust, I venture to draw near to Thee with these youthful efforts. Accept them as a pure offering of childish reverence, and look down graciously, Most Exalted! upon them and their young author,

"LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN."

"These Sonatas," says a most competent critic,[B] "for a boy's work, are, indeed, remarkable. They are bona fide compositions. There is no vagueness about them.... He has ideas positive and well pronounced, and he proceeds to develope them in a manner at once spontaneous and logical.... Verily the boy possessed the vital secret of the Sonata form; he had seized its organic principle."

[Footnote B: J.S. Dwight.]

Ludwig has become an author! His talents are known and appreciated everywhere in Bonn. He is the pet of the musical circle in which he moves,—in danger of being spoiled. Yet now, when the character is forming, and those habits, feelings, tastes are becoming developed and fixed, which are to go with him through life, he can look to his father neither for example nor counsel. He idolizes his mother; but she is oppressed with the cares of a family, suffering through the improvidence and bad habits of its head, and though she had been otherwise situated, the widow of Laym, the Elector's valet, could hardly be the proper person to fit the young artist for future intercourse with the higher ranks of society.

In the large, handsome brick house still standing opposite the minster in Bonn, on the east side of the public square, where now stands the statue of Beethoven, dwelt the widow and children of Hofrath von Breuning. Easy in their circumstances, highly educated, of literary habits, and familiar with polite life, the family was among the first in the city. The four children were not far from Beethoven's age; Eleonore, the daughter, and Lenz, the third son, were young enough to become his pupils. In this family it was Ludwig's good fortune to become a favorite, and "here," says Wegeler, who afterward married Eleonore, "he made his first acquaintance with German literature, especially with the poets, and here first had opportunity to gain the cultivation necessary for social life."

He was soon treated by the Von Breunings as a son and brother, passing not only most of his days, but many of his nights, at their house, and sometimes spending his vacations with them at their country-seat in Kerpen,—a small town on the great road from Cologne to Aix la Chapelle. With them he felt free and unrestrained, and everything tended at the same time to his happiness and his intellectual development. Nor was music neglected. The members of the family were all musical, and Stephen, the eldest son, sometimes played in the Electoral Orchestra.

No person possessed so strong an influence upon the oft-times stubborn and wilful boy as the Frau von Breuning. She best knew how to bring him back to the performance of his duty, when neglectful of his pupils; and when she, with gentle force, had made him cross the square to the house of the Austrian ambassador, Count Westfall, to give the promised lesson, and saw him, after hesitating for a time at the door, suddenly fly back, unable to overcome his dislike to lesson-giving, she would bear patiently with him, merely shrugging her shoulders and remarking, "To-day he has his raptus again!" The poverty at home and his love for his mother alone enabled him ever to master this aversion.

To the Breunings, then, we are indebted for that love of Plutarch, Homer, Shakspeare, Goethe, and whatever gives us noble pictures of that greatness of character which we term "heroic," that enabled the future composer to stir up within us all the finest and noblest emotions, as with the wand of a magician. The boy had an inborn love of the beautiful, the tender, the majestic, the sublime, in nature, in art, and in literature,—together with a strong sense of the humorous and even comic. With the Breunings all these qualities were cultivated and in the right direction. To them the musical world owes a vast debt of gratitude.

Beethoven was no exception to the rule, that only a great man can be a great artist. True, in his later years his correspondence shows at times an ignorance of the rules of grammar and orthography; but it also proves, what may be determined from a thousand other indications, that he was a deep thinker, and that he had a mind of no small degree of cultivation, as it certainly was one of great intellectual power. Had he devoted his life to any other profession than music,—to law, theology, science, or letters,—he would have attained high eminence, and enrolled himself among the great.

But we have anticipated a little, and now turn back to an event which occurred soon after he had completed his thirteenth year, and which proved in its consequences of the highest moment to him,—the death of the Elector, which took place on the 15th of April, 1784. He was succeeded by Maximilian Francis, Bishop of Muenster, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a son of the Emperor Francis and Maria Theresa of Austria.

A word upon this family of imperial musicians may, perhaps, be pardoned. It was Charles VI., the father of Maria Theresa, a composer of canons and music for the harpsichord, who, upon being complimented by his Kapellmeister as being well able to officiate as a music-director, dryly observed, "Upon the whole, however, I like my present position better!" His daughter sang an air upon the stage of the Court Theatre in her fifth year; and in 1739, just before her accession to the imperial dignity, being in Florence, she sang a duet with Senesino—of Handelian memory—with such grace and splendor of voice, that the tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. In all her wars and amid all the cares of state, Maria Theresa never ceased to cherish music. Her children were put under the best instructors, and made thorough musicians;—Joseph, whom Mozart so loved, though the victim of his shabby treatment; Maria Antoinette, the patron of Gluck and the head of his party in Paris; Max Franz, with whom we now have to do,—and so forth.

Upon learning the death of Max Frederick, his successor hastened to Bonn to assume the Archiepiscopal and Electoral dignities, with which he was formally invested in the spring of 1785. In the train of the new Elector, who was still in the prime of life, was the Austrian Count Waldstein, his favorite and constant companion. Waldstein, like his master, was more than an amateur,—he was a fine practical musician. The promising pupil of Neefe was soon brought to his notice, and his talents and attainments excited in him an extraordinary interest. Coming from Vienna, where Mozart and Haydn were in the full tide of their success, where Gluck's operas were heard with rapture, and where in the second rank of musicians and composers were such names as Salieri, Righini, Anfossi, and Martini, Waldstein could well judge of the promise of the boy. He foresaw at once his future greatness, and gave him his favor and protection. He, in some degree, at least, relieved him from the dry rules of Neefe, and taught him the art of varying a theme extempore and carrying it out to its highest development. He had patience and forbearance with the boy's failings and foibles, and, to relieve his necessities, gave him money, sometimes as gifts of his own, sometimes as gratifications from the Elector.

As soon as Maximilian was installed in his new dignity, Waldstein procured for Ludwig the appointment of assistant court organist;—not that Neefe needed him, but that he needed the small salary attached to the place. From this time to the downfall of the Electorate, his name follows that of Neefe in the annual Court Calendar.

Wegeler and others have preserved a variety of anecdotes which illustrate the skill and peculiarities of the young organist at this period, but we have not space for them;—moreover, our object is rather to convey some distinct idea of the training which made him what every lover of music knows he afterward became.

Maximilian Francis was as affable and generous as he was passionately fond of music. A newspaper of the day records, that he used to walk about the streets of Bonn like any other citizen, and early became very popular with all classes. He often took part in the concerts at the palace, as upon a certain occasion when "Duke Albert played violin, the Elector viola, and Countess Belderbusch piano-forte," in a trio. He enlarged his orchestra, and, through his relations with the courts at Vienna, Paris, and other capitals, kept it well supplied with all the new publications of the principal composers of the day,—Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Pleyel, and others.

No better school, therefore, for a young musician could there well have been than that in which Beethoven was now placed. While Neefe took care that he continued his study of the great classic models of organ and piano-forte composition, he was constantly hearing the best ecclesiastical, orchestral, and chamber music, forming his taste upon the best models, and acquiring a knowledge of what the greatest masters had accomplished in their several directions. But as time passed on, he felt the necessity of a still larger field of observation, and, in the autumn of 1786, Neefe's wish that his pupil might travel was fulfilled. He obtained—mainly, it is probable, from the Elector, through the good offices of Waldstein—the means of making the journey to Vienna, then the musical capital of the world, to place himself under the instructions of Mozart, then the master of all living masters. Few records have fallen under our notice, which throw light upon this visit. Seyfried, and Holmes, after him, relate the surprise of Mozart at hearing the boy, now just sixteen years of age, treat an intricate fugue theme, which he gave him, and his prophecy, that "that young man would some day make himself heard of in the world!"

It is said that Beethoven in after life complained of never having heard his master play. The complaint must have been, that Mozart never played to him in private; for it is absurd to suppose that he attended none of the splendid series of concerts which his master gave during that winter.

The mysterious brevity of this first visit of Beethoven to Vienna we find fully explained in a letter, of which we give a more literal than elegant translation. It is the earliest specimen of the composer's correspondence which has come under our notice, and was addressed to a certain Dr. Schade, an advocate of Augsburg, where the young man seems to have tarried some days upon his journey.

"Bonn, September 15, 1787.

"HONORED AND MOST VALUED FRIEND!

"What you must think of me I can easily conceive; nor can I deny that you have well-grounded reasons for looking upon me in an unfavorable light; but I will not ask you to excuse me, until I have made known the grounds upon which I dare hope my apologies will find acceptance. I must confess, that, from the moment of leaving Augsburg, my happiness, and with it my health, began to leave me; the nearer I drew toward my native city, the more numerous were the letters of my father, which met me, urging me onward, as the condition of my mother's health was critical. I hastened forward, therefore, with all possible expedition, for I was myself much indisposed; but the longing I felt to see my sick mother once more made all hindrances of little account, and aided me in overcoming all obstacles.

"I found her still alive, but in a most pitiable condition. She was in a consumption, and finally, about seven weeks since, after enduring the extremes of pain and suffering, died. She was to me such a good and loving mother,—my best of friends!

"Oh, who would be so happy as I, could I still speak the sweet name, 'Mother,' and have her hear it! And to whom can I now speak? To the dumb, but lifelike pictures which my imagination calls up.

"During the whole time since I reached home, few have been my hours of enjoyment. All this time I have been afflicted with asthma, and the fear is forced upon me that it may end in consumption. Moreover, the state of melancholy in which I now am is almost as great a misfortune as my sickness itself.

"Imagine yourself in my position for a moment, and I doubt not that I shall receive your forgiveness for my long silence. As to the three Carolins which you had the extraordinary kindness and friendship to lend me in Augsburg, I must beg your indulgence still for a time. My journey has cost me a good deal, and I have no compensation—not even the slightest—to hope in return. Fortune is not propitious to me here in Bonn.

"You will forgive me for detaining you so long with my babble; it is all necessary to my apology. I pray you not to refuse me the continuance of your valuable friendship, since there is nothing I so much desire as to make myself in some degree worthy of it. I am, with all respect, your most obedient servant and friend,

"L. v. BEETHOVEN,

"Court Organist to the Elector of Cologne."

We know also from other sources the extreme poverty in which the Beethoven family was at this period sunk. In its extremity, at the time when the mother died, Franz Ries, the violinist, came to its assistance, and his kindness was not forgotten by Ludwig. When Ferdinand, the son of this Ries, reached Vienna in the autumn of 1800, and presented his father's letter, Beethoven said,—"I cannot answer your father yet; but write and tell him that I have not forgotten the death of my mother. That will fully satisfy him."

Young Beethoven, therefore, had little time for illness. His father barely supported himself, and the sustenance of his two little brothers, respectively twelve and thirteen years of age, devolved upon him. He was, however, equal to his situation. He played his organ still,—the instrument which was then above all others to his taste; he entered the Orchestra as player upon the viola; received the appointment of chamber-musician—pianist—to the Elector; and besides all this, engaged in the detested labor of teaching. It proves no small energy of character, that the motherless youth of seventeen, "afflicted with asthma," which he was "fearful might end in consumption," struggling against a "state of melancholy, almost as great a misfortune as sickness itself," succeeded in overcoming all, and securing the welfare of himself, his father, and his brothers. When he left Bonn finally, five years later, Carl, then eighteen, could support himself by teaching music, and Johann was apprenticed to the court apothecary; while the father appears to have had a comfortable subsistence provided for him,—although no longer an active member of the Electoral Chapel,—for the few weeks which, as it happened, remained of his life.

The scattered notices which are preserved of Beethoven, during this period, are difficult to arrange in a chronological order. We read of a joke played at the expense of Heller, the principal tenor singer of the Chapel, in which that singer, who prided himself upon his firmness in pitch, was completely bewildered by a skilful modulation of the boy upon the piano-forte, and forced to stop;—of the music to a chivalrous ballad, performed by the noblemen attached to the court, of which for a long time Count Waldstein was the reputed author, but which in fact was the work of his protege;—and there are other anecdotes, probably familiar to most readers, showing the great skill and science which he already exhibited in his performance of chamber music in the presence of the Elector.

We see him intimate as ever in the Breuning family, mingling familiarly with the best society of Bonn, which he met at their house,—and even desperately in love! First it is with Frauelein Jeannette d'Honrath, of Cologne, a beautiful and lively blonde, of pleasing manners, sweet and gentle disposition, an ardent lover of music, and an agreeable singer, who often came to Bonn and spent weeks with the Breunings. She seems to have played the coquette a little, both with our young artist and his friend Stephen. It is not difficult to imagine the effect upon the sensitive and impulsive Ludwig, when the beautiful girl, nodding to him in token of its application, sang in tender accents the then popular song,—

"Mich heute noch von dir zu trennen, Und dieses nicht verhindern koennen, Ist zu empfindlich fuer mein Herz."

She saw fit, however, to marry an Austrian, Carl Greth, a future commandant at Temeswar, and her youthful lover was left to console himself by transferring his affections to another beauty, Frauelein W.

We behold him in the same select circle, cultivating his talent for improvising upon the piano-forte, by depicting in music the characters of friends and acquaintances, and generally in such a manner that the company had no difficulty in guessing the person intended. On one of these occasions, Franz Ries was persuaded to take his violin and improvise an accompaniment to his friend's improvisation, which he did so successfully, that, long afterwards, he more than once ventured to attempt the same in public, with his son Ferdinand.

Professor Wurzer, of Marburg, who well knew Beethoven in his youth, gives us a glimpse of him sitting at the organ. On a pleasant summer afternoon, when the artist was about twenty years of age, he, with some companions, strolled out to Godesberg. Here they met Wurzer, who, in the course of the conversation, mentioned that the church of the convent of Marienforst—behind the village of Godesberg—had been repaired, and that a new organ had been procured, or perhaps that the old one had been put in order and perfected. Beethoven must needs try it. The key was procured from the prior, and the friends gave him themes to vary and work out, which he did with such skill and beauty, that at length the peasants engaged below in cleaning the church, one after another, dropped their brooms and brushes, forgetting everything else in their wonder and delight.

In 1790, an addition was made to the Orchestra, most important in its influence upon the artistic progress of Beethoven, as he was thus brought into daily intercourse with two young musicians, already distinguished virtuosos upon their respective instruments. The Elector made frequent visits to other cities of his diocese, often taking a part or the whole of his Chapel with him. Upon his return that summer from Muenster, he brought with him the two virtuosos in question. Andreas Romberg, the violinist, and now celebrated composer, and his cousin Bernhard, the greatest violoncellist of his age. With these two young men Beethoven was often called to the palace for the private entertainment of Maximilian. Very probably, upon one of these occasions, was performed that trio not published until since the death of its composer—"the second movement of which," says Schindler, "may be looked upon as the embryo of all Beethoven's scherzos," while "the third is, in idea and form, of the school of Mozart,—a proof how early he made that master his idol." We know that it was composed at this period, and that its author considered it his highest attempt then in free composition.

A few words must be given to the Electoral Orchestra, that school in which Beethoven laid the foundation of his prodigious knowledge of instrumental and orchestral effects, as in the chamber-music at the palace he learned the unrivalled skill which distinguishes his efforts in that branch of the art.

The Kapellmeister, in 1792, was Andrea Lucchesi, a native of Motta, in the Venetian territory, a fertile and accomplished composer in most styles. The concert-master was Joseph Reicha, a virtuoso upon the violoncello, a very fine conductor, and no mean composer. The violins were sixteen in number; among them were Franz Ries, Neefe, Anton Reicha,—afterward the celebrated director of the Paris Conservatoire,—and Andreas Romberg; violas four, among them Ludwig van Beethoven; violoncellists three, among them Bernhard Romberg; contrabassists also three. There were two oboes, two flutes,—one of them played by another Anton Reicha,—two clarinets, two horns,—one by Simrock, a celebrated player, and founder of the music-publishing house of that name still existing in Bonn,—three bassoons, four trumpets, and the usual tympani.

Fourteen of the forty-three musicians were soloists upon their several instruments; some half a dozen of them were already known as composers. Four years, at the least, of service in such an orchestra may well be considered of all schools the best in which Beethoven could have been placed. Let his works decide.

Our article shall close with some pictures photographed in the sunshine which gilded the closing years of Beethoven's Bonn life. They illustrate the character of the man and of the people with whom he lived and moved.

In 1791, in that beautiful season of the year in Central Europe, when the heats of summer are past and the autumn rains not yet set in, the Elector journeyed to Mergentheim, to hold, in his capacity of Grand Master, a convocation of the Teutonic Order. The leading singers of his Chapel, and some twenty members of the Orchestra, under Ries as director, followed in two large barges. Before, starting upon the expedition, the company assembled and elected a king. The dignity was conferred upon Joseph Lux, the bass singer and comic actor, who, in distributing the offices of his court, appointed Ludwig van Beethoven and Bernhard Romberg scullions!

A glorious time and a merry they had of it, following slowly the windings of the Rhine and the Main, now impelled by the wind, now drawn by horses, against the swift current, in this loveliest time of the year.

In those days, when steamboats were not, such a voyage was slow, and not seldom in a high degree tedious. With such a company the want of speed was a consideration of no importance, and the memory of this journey was in after years among Beethoven's brightest. Those who know the Rhine and the Main can easily conceive that this should be so. The route embraced the whole extent of the famous highlands of the former river, from the Drachenfels and Rolandseek to the heights of the Niederwald above Ruedesheim, and that lovely section of the latter which divides the hills of the Odenwald from those of Spessart. The voyagers passed a thousand points of local and historic interest. The old castles—among them Stolzenfels and the Brothers—looked down upon them from their rocky heights, as long afterwards upon the American, Paul Flemming, when he journeyed, sick at heart, along the Rhine, toward ancient Heidelberg. Quaint old cities—Andernach, with "the Christ," Coblentz, home of Beethoven's mother, Boppard, Bacharach, Bingen—welcomed them; Mainz, the Electoral city, and Frankfurt, seat of the Empire. And still beyond, on the banks of the Main, Offenbach, Hanau, Aschaffenburg, and so onward to Wertheim, where they left the Main and ascended the small river Tauber to their place of destination.

Among the places at which they landed and made merry upon the journey was the Niederwald. Here King Lux advanced Beethoven to a more honorable position in his court, and gave him a diploma, dated from the heights above Ruedesheim, attesting his appointment to the new dignity. To this important document was attached, by threads ravelled from a boat-sail, a huge seal of pitch, pressed into a small box-cover, which gave the instrument a right imposing look,—like the Golden Bull in the Roemer-Saal at Frankfurt. This diploma from His Comic Majesty Beethoven carried with him to Vienna, where Wegeler saw it several years afterward carefully preserved.

At Aschaffenburg, the summer residence of the Electors of Mainz, Ries, Simrock, and the two Rombergs took Beethoven with them to call upon the great pianist, Sterkel. The master received the young men kindly, and gratified them with a specimen of his powers. His style was in the highest degree graceful and pleasing,—as Father Ries described it to Wegeler, "somewhat lady-like." While he played, Beethoven stood by, listening with the most eager attention, doubtless silently comparing the effects produced by the player with those belonging to his own style, which was rather rough and hard, owing to his constant practice upon the organ. It is said that this was his first opportunity of hearing any distinguished virtuoso upon the piano-forte,—a mistake, we think, for he must have heard Mozart in Vienna, as before remarked. Still, the delicacy of Sterkel's style may well have been a new revelation to him of the powers of the instrument. Upon leaving the piano-forte, the master invited his young visitor to take his place. Beethoven was naturally diffident, and was not to be prevailed with, until Sterkel intimated a doubt whether he could play his own very difficult variations upon the air, "Vieni, Amore," which had then just been published. Thus touched in a tender spot, the young author sat down and played such as he could remember,—no copy being at hand,—and then improvised several others, equally, if not more difficult, to the surprise both of Sterkel and his friends. "What raised our surprise to real astonishment," said Ries, as he related the story, "was, that the impromptu variations were in precisely that graceful, pleasing style which he had just heard for the first time."

Upon reaching Mergentheim, music, and ever music, became the order of the day for King Lux and his merry subjects. Most fortunately for the admirers of Beethoven, we have a minute account of two days (October 11 and 12) spent there, by a competent and trustworthy musical critic of that period,—a man not the less welcome to us for possessing something of the flunkeyism of old Diarist Pepys and Corsica Boswell. We shall quote somewhat at length from his letter, since it has hitherto come under the notice of none of the biographers, and yet gives us so lively a picture of young Beethoven and his friends.

"On the very first day," writes Junker, "I heard the small band which plays at dinner, during the stay of the Elector at Mergentheim. The instruments are two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns. These eight performers may well be called masters in their art. One can rarely hear music of the kind, distinguished by such perfect unity of effect and such sympathy with each other in the performers, and especially in which so high a degree of exactness and perfection of style is reached. This band appeared to me to differ from all others I have heard in this,—that it plays music of a higher order; on this occasion, for instance, it gave an arrangement of Mozart's overture to 'Don Juan.'"

It would be interesting to know what, if any, of the works of Beethoven for wind-instruments belong to this period of his life.

"Soon after the dinner-music," continues our writer, "the play began. It was the opera, 'King Theodor,' music by Paisiello. The part of Theodor was sung by Herr Nuedler, a powerful singer in tragic scenes, and a good actor. Achmet was given by Herr Spitzeder,—a good bass singer, but with too little action, and not always quite true,—in short, too cold. The inn-keeper was Herr Lux, a very good bass, and the best actor,—a man created for the comic. The part of Lizette was taken by Demoiselle Willmann. She sings in excellent taste, has very great power of expression, and a lively, captivating action. Herr Maendel, in Sandrino, proved himself also a very fine and pleasing singer. The orchestra was surpassingly good,—especially in its piano and forte, and its careful crescendo. Herr Ries, that remarkable reader of scores, that great player, directed with his violin. He is a man who may well be placed beside Cannabich, and by his powerful and certain tones he gave life and soul to the whole....

"The next morning, (October 12,) at ten o'clock, the rehearsal for the concert began, which was to be given at court at six in the afternoon. Herr Welsch (oboist) had the politeness to invite me to be present. I was held at the lodgings of Herr Ries, who received me with a hearty shake of the hand. Here I was an eye-witness of the gentlemanly bearing of the members of the Chapel toward each other. One heart, one mind rules them. 'We know nothing of the cabals and chicanery so common; among us the most perfect unanimity prevails; we, as members of one company, cherish for each other a fraternal affection,' said Simrock to me.

"Here also I was an eye-witness to the esteem and respect in which this chapel stands with the Elector. Just as the rehearsal was to begin, Ries was sent for by the prince, and upon his return brought a bag of gold. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'this being the Elector's name-day, he sends you a present of a thousand thalers.'

"And again I was eye-witness of this orchestra's surpassing excellence. Herr Winneberger, Kapellmeister at Wallenstein, laid before it a symphony of his own composition, which was by no means easy of execution, especially for the wind instruments, which had several solos concertante. It went finely, however, at the first trial, to the great surprise of the composer.

"An hour after the dinner-music, the concert began. It was opened with a symphony of Mozart; then followed a recitative and air, sung by Simonetti; next a violincello concerto, played by Herr Romberger (Bernhard Romberg); fourthly, a symphony, by Pleyel; fifthly, an air by Righini, sung by Simonette; sixthly, a double concerto for violin and violoncello, played by the two Rombergs; and the closing piece was the symphony by Winneberger, which had very many brilliant passages. The opinion already expressed as to the performance of this orchestra was confirmed. It was not possible to attain a higher degree of exactness. Such perfection in the pianos, fortes, rinforzandos,—such a swelling and gradual increase of tone, and then such an almost imperceptible dying away, from the most powerful to the lightest accents,—all this was formerly to be heard only at Mannheim. It would be difficult to find another orchestra in which the violins and basses are throughout in such excellent hands."

We pass over Junker's enthusiastic description of the two Rombergs, merely remarking, that every word in his account of them is fully confirmed by the musical periodical press of Europe during the entire periods of thirty and fifty years of their respective lives after the date of the letter before us,—and that their playing was undoubtedly the standard Beethoven had in view, when afterward writing passages for bowed instruments, which so often proved stumbling-blocks to orchestras of no small pretensions. What Junker himself saw of the harmony and brotherly love which marked the social intercourse of the members of the Chapel was confirmed to him by the statements of others. He adds, respecting their personal bearing towards others,—"The demeanor of these gentlemen is very fine and unexceptionable. They are all people of great elegance of manner and of blameless lives. Greater discretion of conduct can nowhere be found. At the concert, the ill-starred performers were so crowded, so incommoded by the multitude of auditors, so surrounded and pressed upon, as hardly to have room to move their arms, and the sweat rolled down their faces in great drops. But they bore all this calmly and with good-humor; not an ill-natured face was visible among them. At the court of some little prince, we should have seen, under the circumstances, folly heaped upon folly.

"The members of the Chapel, almost without exception, are in their best years, glowing with health, men of culture and fine personal appearance. They form truly a fine sight, when one adds the splendid uniform in which the Elector has clothed them,—red, and richly trimmed with gold."

And now for the impression which Beethoven, just completing his twenty-first year, made upon him.

"I heard also one of the greatest of pianists,—the dear, good Beethoven, some compositions by whom appeared in the Spires 'Blumenlese' in 1783, written in his eleventh year. True, he did not perform in public, probably because the instrument here was not to his mind. It is one of Spath's make, and at Bonn he plays upon one by Steiner. But, what was infinitely preferable to me, I heard him extemporize in private; yes, I was even invited to propose a theme for him to vary. The greatness of this amiable, light-hearted man, as a virtuoso, may, in my opinion, be safely estimated from his almost inexhaustible wealth of ideas, the altogether characteristic style of expression in his playing, and the great execution which he displays. I know, therefore, no one thing which he lacks, that conduces to the greatness of an artist. I have heard Vogler upon the piano-forte,—of his organ-playing I say nothing, not having heard him upon that instrument,—have often heard him, heard him by the hour together, and never failed to wonder at his astonishing execution; but Beethoven, in addition to the execution, has greater clearness and weight of idea, and more expression,—in short, he is more for the heart,—equally great, therefore, as an adagio or allegro player. Even the members of this remarkable orchestra are, without exception, his admirers, and all ear whenever he plays. Yet he is exceedingly modest and free from all pretension. He, however, acknowledged to me, that, upon the journeys which the Elector had enabled him to make, he had seldom found in the playing of the most distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect. His style of treating his instrument is so different from that usually adopted, that it impresses one with the idea, that by a path of his own discovery he has attained that height of excellence whereon he now stands.

"Had I acceded to the pressing entreaties of my friend Beethoven, to which Herr Winneberger added his own, and remained another day in Mergentheim, I have no doubt he would have played to me hours; and the day, thus spent in the society of these two great artists, would have been transformed into a day of the highest bliss."

Doubtless, Herr Junker, judging from the enthusiasm with which you have written, it would have been so; and for our sake, as well as your own, we heartily wish you had remained!

Again in Bonn,—the young master's last year in his native city,—that petite perle. It was a fortunate circumstance for the development of a genius so powerful and original, that the place was not one of such importance as to call thither any composer or pianist of very great eminence,—such a one as would have ruled the musical sphere in which he moved, and become an object of imitation to the young student. Beethoven's instructors and the musical atmosphere in which he lived and wrought were fully able to ground him firmly in the laws and rules of the art, without restraining the natural bent of his genius. His taste for orchestral music, even, was developed in no particular school, formed upon no single model,—the Electoral band playing, with equal care and spirit, music from the presses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London. Mozart, however, was Beethoven's favorite, and his influence is unmistakably impressed upon many of the early compositions of his young admirer.

But the youthful genius was fast becoming so superior to all around him, that a wider field was necessary for his full development. He needed the opportunity to measure his powers with those of the men who stood, by general consent, at the head of the art; he felt the necessity of instruction by teachers of a different and higher character, if any could be found. Mozart, it is true, had just passed away, but still Vienna remained the great metropolis of music; and thither his hopes and wishes turned. An interview with Haydn added strength to these hopes and wishes. This was upon Haydn's return, in the spring of 1792, after his first visit to London, where he had composed for and directed in the concerts of that Johann Peter Salomon in whose house Beethoven first saw the light. The veteran composer, on his way home, came to Bonn, and there accepted an invitation from the Electoral Orchestra to a breakfast in Godesberg. Here Beethoven was introduced to him, and placed before him a cantata which he had offered for performance at Mergentheim, the preceding autumn, but which had proved too difficult for the wind-instruments in certain passages. Haydn examined it carefully, and encouraged him to continue in the path of musical composition. Neefe also hints to us that Haydn was greatly impressed by the skill of the young man as a piano-forte virtuoso.

Happily, Beethoven was now, as we have seen, free from the burden of supporting his young brothers, and needed but the means for his journey.

"In November of last year," writes Neefe, in 1793, "Ludwig van Beethoven, second court organist, and indisputably one of the first of living pianists, left Bonn for Vienna, to perfect himself in composition under Haydn. Haydn intended to take him with him upon a second journey to London, but nothing has come of it."

A few days or weeks, then, before completing his twenty-second year, Beethoven entered Vienna a second time, to enjoy the example and instructions of him who was now universally acknowledged the head of the musical world; to measure his powers upon the piano-forte with the greatest virtuosos then living; to start upon that career, in which, by unwearied labor, indomitable perseverance, and never-tiring effort,—alike under the smiles and the frowns of fortune, in sickness and in health, and in spite of the saddest calamity which can befall the true artist, he elevated himself to a position, which, by every competent judge, is held to be the highest yet attained in perhaps the grandest department of pure music.

Beethoven came to Vienna in the full vigor of youth just emerging into manhood. The clouds which had settled over his childhood had all passed away. All looked bright, joyous, and hopeful. Though, perhaps, wanting in some of the graces and refinements of polite life, it is clear, from his intimacy with the Breuning family, his consequent familiarity with the best society at Bonn, the unchanging kindness of Count Waldstein, the explicit testimony of Junker, that he was not, could not have been, the young savage which some of his blind admirers have represented him. The bare supposition is an insult to his memory. That his sense of probity and honor was most acute, that he was far above any, the slightest, meanness of thought or action, of a noble and magnanimous order of mind, utterly destitute of any feeling of servility which rendered it possible for him to cringe to the rich and the great, and that he ever acted from a deep sense of moral obligation,—all this his whole subsequent history proves. His merit, both as an artist and a man, met at once full recognition.

And here for the present we leave him, moving in Vienna, as in Bonn, in the higher circles of society, in the full sunshine of prosperity, enjoying all that his ardent nature could demand of esteem and admiration in the saloons of the great, in the society of his brother artists, in the popular estimation.

* * * * *

A WORD TO THE WISE.

Love hailed a little maid, Romping through the meadow: Heedless in the sun she played, Scornful of the shadow. "Come with me," whispered he; "Listen, sweet, to love and reason." "By and by," she mocked reply; "Love's not in season."

Years went, years came; Light mixed with shadow. Love met the maid again, Dreaming through the meadow. "Not so coy," urged the boy; "List in time to love and reason." "By and by," she mused reply; "Love's still in season."

Years went, years came; Light changed to shadow. Love saw the maid again, Waiting in the meadow. "Pass no more; my dream is o'er; I can listen now to reason." "Keep thee coy," mocked the boy; "Love's out of season."



HENRY WARD BEECHER.[A]

[Footnote A: Life Thoughts, gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher. By a Member of his Congregation. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1858. pp. 299.]

There are more than thirty thousand preachers in the United States, whereof twenty-eight thousand are Protestants, the rest Catholics,—one minister to a thousand men. They make an exceeding great army,—mostly serious, often self-denying and earnest. Nay, sometimes you find them men of large talent, perhaps even of genius. No thirty thousand farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, or traders have so much of that book-learning which is popularly called "Education."

No class has such opportunities for influence, such means of power; even now the press ranks second to the pulpit. Some of the old traditional respect for the theocratic class continues in service, and waits upon the ministers. It has come down from Celtic and Teutonic fathers, hundreds of years behind us, who transferred to a Roman priesthood the allegiance once paid to the servants of a deity quite different from the Catholic. The Puritans founded an ecclesiastical oligarchy which is by no means ended yet; with the most obstinate "liberty of prophesying" there was mixed a certain respect for such as only wore the prophet's mantle; nor is it wholly gone.

What personal means of controlling the public the minister has at his command! Of their own accord, men "assemble and meet together," and look up to him. In the country, the town-roads centre at the meeting-house, which is also the terminus a quo, the golden mile-stone, whence distances are measured off. Once a week, the wheels of business, and even of pleasure, drop into the old customary ruts, and turn thither. Sunday morning, all the land is still. Labor puts off his iron apron and arrays him in clean human clothes,—a symbol of universal humanity, not merely of special toil. Trade closes the shop; his business-pen, well wiped, is laid up for to-morrow's use; the account-book is shut,—men thinking of their trespasses as well as their debts. For six days, aye, and so many nights, Broadway roars with the great stream which sets this way and that, as wind and tide press up and down. How noisy is this great channel of business, wherein Humanity rolls to and fro, now running into shops, now sucked down into cellars, then dashed high up the tall, steep banks, to come down again a continuous drip and be lost in the general flood! What a fringe of foam colors the margin on either side, and what gay bubbles float therein, with more varied gorgeousness than the Queen of Sheba dreamed of putting on when she courted the eye of Hebrew Solomon! Sunday, this noise is still. Broadway is a quiet stream, looking sober, or even dull; its voice is but a gentle murmur of many waters calmly flowing where the ecclesiastical gates are open to let them in. The channel of business has shrunk to a little church-canal. Even in this great Babel of commerce one day in seven is given up to the minister. The world may have the other six; this is for the Church;—for so have Abram and Lot divided the field of Time, that there be no strife between the rival herdsmen of the Church and the World. Sunday morning, Time rings the bell. At the familiar sound, by long habit born in them, and older than memory, men assemble at the meeting-house, nestle themselves devoutly in their snug pews, and button themselves in with wonted care. There is the shepherd, and here is the flock, fenced off into so many little private pens. With dumb, yet eloquent patience, they look up listless, perhaps longing, for such fodder as he may pull out from his spiritual mow and shake down before them. What he gives they gather.

Other speakers must have some magnetism of personal power or public reputation to attract men; but the minister can dispense with that; to him men answer before he calls, and even when they are not sent by others are drawn by him. Twice a week, nay, three times, if he will, do they lend him their ears to be filled with his words. No man of science or letters has such access to men. Besides, he is to speak on the grandest of all themes,—of Man, of God, of Religion, man's deepest desires, his loftiest aspirings. Before him the rich and the poor meet together, conscious of the one God, Master of them all, who is no respecter of persons. To the minister the children look up, and their pliant faces are moulded by his plastic hand. The young men and maidens are there,—such possibility of life and character before them, such hope is there, such faith in man and God, as comes instinctively to those who have youth on their side. There are the old: men and women with white crowns on their heads; faces which warn and scare with the ice and storm of eighty winters, or guide and charm with the beauty of four-score summers,—rich in promise once, in harvest now. Very beautiful is the presence of old men, and of that venerable sisterhood whose experienced temples are turbaned with the raiment of such as have come out of much tribulation, and now shine as white stars foretelling an eternal day. Young men all around, a young man in the pulpit, the old men's look of experienced life says "Amen" to the best word, and their countenance is a benediction.

The minister is not expected to appeal to the selfish motives which are addressed by the market, the forum, or the bar, but to the eternal principle of Right. He must not be guided by the statutes of men, changeable as the clouds, but must fix his eye on the bright particular star of Justice, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. To him, office, money, social rank, and fame are but toys or counters which the game of life is played withal; while wisdom, integrity, benevolence, piety are the prizes the game is for. He digs through the dazzling sand, and bids men build on the rock of ages.

Surely, no men have such opportunity of speech and power as these thirty thousand ministers. What have they to show for it all? The hunter, fisher, woodman, miner, farmer, mechanic, has each his special wealth. What have this multitude of ministers to show?—how much knowledge given, what wise guidance, what inspiration of humanity? Let the best men answer.

This ministerial army may be separated into three divisions. First, the Church Militant, the Fighting Church, as the ecclesiastical dictionaries define it. Reverend men serve devoutly in its ranks. Their work is negative, oppositional. Under various banners, with diverse, and discordant war-cries, trumpets braying a certain or uncertain sound, and weapons of strange pattern, though made of trusty steel, they do battle against the enemy. What shots from antique pistols, matchlocks, from crossbows and catapults, are let fly at the foe! Now the champion attacks "New Views," "Ultraism," "Neology," "Innovation," "Discontent," "Carnal Reason"; then he lays lance in rest, and rides valiantly upon "Unitarianism," "Popery," "Infidelity," "Atheism," "Deism," "Spiritualism"; and though one by one he runs them through, yet he never quite slays the Evil One;—the severed limbs unite again, and a new monster takes the old one's place. It is serious men who make up the Church Militant,—grim, earnest, valiant. If mustered in the ninth century, there had been no better soldiers nor elder.

Next is the Church Termagant. They are the Scolds of the Church-hold, terrible from the beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they have always a burden against something. Obsta decisis is their motto,—"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are called for, the Church Termagant holds up its hand. A turbulent people, and a troublesome, are these sons of thunder,—a brotherhood of universal come-outers. Their only concord is disagreement. It is not often, perhaps, that they have better thoughts than the rest of men, but a superior aptitude to find fault; their growling proves, "not that themselves are wise, but others weak." So their pulpit is a brawling-tub, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They have a deal of thunder, and much lightning, but no light, nor any continuous warmth, only spasms of heat. Odi presentem laudare absentem,—the Latin tells their story. They come down and trouble every Bethesda in the world, but heal none of the impotent folk. To them,

"Of old things, all are over old, Of new things, none is new enough."

They have a rage for fault-finding, and betake themselves to the pulpit as others are sent to Bedlam. Men of all denominations are here, and it is a deal of mischief they do,—the worst, indirectly, by making a sober man distrust the religious faculty they appeal to, and set his face against all mending of anything, no matter how badly it is broken. These Theudases, boasting themselves to be somebody, and leading men off to perish in the wilderness, frighten every sober man from all thought of moving out of his bad neighborhood or seeking to make it better.—But this is a small portion of the ecclesiastic host. Let us be tolerant to their noise and bigotry.

Last of all is the Church Beneficent or Constructant. Their work is positive,—critical of the old, creative also of the new. They take hold of the strongest of all human faculties,—the religious,—and use this great river of God, always full of water, to moisten hill-side and meadow, to turn lonely saw-mills, and drive the wheels in great factories, which make a metropolis of manufactures,—to bear alike the lumberman's logs and the trader's ships to their appointed place; the stream feeding many a little forget-me-not, as it passes by. Men of all denominations belong to this Church Catholic; yet all are of one persuasion, the brotherhood of Humanity,—for the one spirit loves manifoldness of form. They trouble themselves little about Sin, the universal but invisible enemy whom the Church Termagant attempts to shell and dislodge; but are very busy in attacking Sins. These ministers of religion would rout Drunkenness and Want, Ignorance, Idleness, Lust, Covetousness, Vanity, Hate, and Pride, vices of instinctive passion or reflective ambition. Yet the work of these men is to build up; they cut down the forest and scare off the wild beasts only to replace them with civil crops, cattle, corn, and men. Instead of the howling wilderness, they would have the village or the city, full of comfort and wealth and musical with knowledge and with love. How often are they misunderstood! Some savage hears the ring of the axe, the crash of falling timber, or the rifle's crack and the drop of wolf or bear, and cries out, "A destructive and dangerous man; he has no reverence for the ancient wilderness, but would abolish it and its inhabitants; away with him!" But look again at this destroyer, and in place of the desert woods, lurked in by a few wild beasts and wilder men, behold, a whole New England of civilization has come up! The minister of this Church of the Good Samaritans delivers the poor that cry, and the fatherless, and him that hath none to help him; he makes the widow's heart sing for joy, and the blessing of such as are ready to perish comes on him; he is eyes to the blind, feet to the lame; the cause of evil which he knows not he searches out; breaking the jaws of the wicked to pluck one spirit out of their teeth. In a world of work, he would have no idler in the market-place; in a world of bread, he would not eat his morsel alone while the fatherless has nought; nor would he see any perish for want of clothing. He knows the wise God made man for a good end, and provided adequate means thereto; so he looks for them where they were placed, in the world of matter and of men, not outside of either. So while he entertains every old Truth, he looks out also into the crowd of new Opinions, hoping to find others of their kin: and the new thought does not lodge in the street; he opens his doors to the traveller, not forgetful to entertain strangers,—knowing that some have also thereby entertained angels unawares. He does not fear the great multitude, nor does the contempt of a few families make him afraid.

This Church Constructant has a long apostolical succession of great men, and many nations are gathered in its fold. And what a variety of beliefs it has! But while each man on his private account says, CREDO, and believes as he must and shall, and writes or speaks his opinions in what speech he likes best,—they all, with one accordant mouth, say likewise, FACIAMUS, and betake them to the one great work of developing man's possibility of knowledge and virtue.

Mr. Beecher belongs to this Church Constructant. He is one of its eminent members, its most popular and effective preacher. No minister in the United States is so well known, none so widely beloved. He is as well known in Ottawa as in Broadway. He has the largest Protestant congregation in America, and an ungathered parish which no man attempts to number. He has church members in Maine, Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas, California, and all the way between. Men look on him as a national institution, a part of the public property. Not a Sunday in the year but representative men from every State in the Union fix their eyes on him, are instructed by his sermons and uplifted by his prayers. He is the most popular of American lecturers. In the celestial sphere of theological journals, his papers are the bright particular star in that constellation called the "Independent": men look up to and bless the useful light, and learn therefrom the signs of the times. He is one of the bulwarks of freedom in Kansas,—a detached fort. He was a great force in the last Presidential campaign, and several stump-speakers were specially detailed to overtake and offset him. But the one man surrounded the many. Scarcely is there a Northern minister so bitterly hated at the South. The slave-traders, the border-ruffians, the purchased officials know no Higher Law; "nor Hale nor Devil can make them afraid"; yet they fear the terrible whip of Henry Ward Beecher.

The time has not come—may it long be far distant!—to analyze his talents and count up his merits and defects. But there are certain obvious excellences which account for his success and for the honor paid him.

Mr. Beecher has great strength of instinct,—of spontaneous human feeling. Many men lose this in "getting an education"; they have tanks of rain-water, barrels of well-water; but on their premises is no spring, and it never rains there. A mountain-spring supplies Mr. Beecher with fresh, living water.

He has great love for Nature, and sees the symbolical value of material beauty and its effect on man.

He has great fellow-feeling with the joys and sorrows of men. Hence he is always on the side of the suffering, and especially of the oppressed; all his sermons and lectures indicate this. It endears him to millions, and also draws upon him the hatred and loathing of a few Pharisees, some of them members of his own sect.

Listen to this:—

"Looked at without educated associations, there is no difference between a man in bed and a man in a coffin. And yet such is the power of the heart to redeem the animal life, that there is nothing more exquisitely refined and pure and beautiful than the chamber of the house. The couch! From the day that the bride sanctifies it, to the day when the aged mother is borne from it, it stands clothed with loveliness and dignity. Cursed be the tongue that dares speak evil of the household bed! By its side oscillates the cradle. Not far from it is the crib. In this sacred precinct, the mother's chamber, lies the heart of the family. Here the child learns its prayer. Hither, night by night, angels troop. It is the Holy of Holies."

How well he understands the ministry of grief!

"A Christian man's life is laid in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and his heart is a shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the other is joy; and the shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and forth, carrying the thread, which is white or black, as the pattern needs; and in the end, when God shall lift up the finished garment, and all its changing hues shall glance out, it will then appear that the deep and dark colors were as needful to beauty as the bright and high colors."

He loves children, and the boy still fresh in his manhood.

"When your own child comes in from the street, and has learned to swear from the bad boys congregated there, it is a very different thing to you from what it was when you heard the profanity of those boys as you passed them. Now it takes hold of you, and makes you feel that you are a stockholder in the public morality. Children make men better citizens. Of what use would an engine be to a ship, if it were lying loose in the hull? It must be fastened to it with bolts and screws, before it can propel the vessel. Now a childless man is just like a loose engine. A man must be bolted and screwed to the community before he can begin to work for its advancement; and there are no such screws and bolts as children."

He has a most Christ-like contempt for the hypocrite, whom he scourges with heavy evangelical whips,—but the tenderest Christian love for earnest men struggling after nobleness.

Read this:—

"I think the wickedest people on earth are those who use a force of genius to make themselves selfish in the noblest things, keeping themselves aloof from the vulgar and the ignorant and the unknown; rising higher and higher in taste, till they sit, ice upon ice, on the mountain-top of eternal congelation."

"Men are afraid of slight outward acts which will injure them in the eyes of others, while they are heedless of the damnation which throbs in their souls in hatreds and jealousies and revenges."

"Many people use their refinements as a spider uses his web, to catch the weak upon, that they may he mercilessly devoured. Christian men should use refinement on this principle: the more I have, the more I owe to those who are less than I."

He values the substance of man more than his accidents.

"We say a man is 'made.' What do we mean? That he has got the control of his lower instincts, so that they are only fuel to his higher feelings, giving force to his nature? That his affections are like vines, sending out on all sides blossoms and clustering fruits? That his tastes are so cultivated, that all beautiful things speak to him, and bring him their delights? That his understanding is opened, so that he walks through every hall of knowledge, and gathers its treasures? That his moral feelings are so developed and quickened, that he holds sweet commerce with Heaven? Oh, no!—none of these things! He is cold and dead in heart and mind and soul. Only his passions are alive; but—he is worth five hundred thousand dollars!

"And we say a man is 'ruined.' Are his wife and children dead? Oh, no! Have they had a quarrel, and are they separated from him? Oh, no! Has he lost his reputation through crime? No. Is his reason gone? Oh, no! it's as sound as ever. Is he struck through with disease? No. He has lost his property, and he is ruined. The man ruined? When shall we learn that 'a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth'"?

Mr. Beecher's God has the gentle and philanthropic qualities of Jesus of Nazareth, with omnipotence added. Religious emotion comes out in his prayers, sermons, and lectures, as the vegetative power of the earth in the manifold plants and flowers of spring.

"The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine on the mountain-top waves its sombre boughs, and cries, 'Thou art my sun!' And the little meadow-violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, 'Thou art my sun!' And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, 'Thou art my sun!'

"So God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or low, than he may not look up with childlike confidence and say, 'My Father! thou art mine!'"

"When once the filial feeling is breathed into the heart, the soul cannot be terrified by augustness, or justice, or any form of Divine grandeur; for then, to such a one, all the attributes of God are but so many arms stretched abroad through the universe, to gather and to press to his bosom those whom he loves. The greater he is, the gladder are we, so that he be our Father still.

"But, if one consciously turns away from God, or fears him, the nobler and grander the representation be, the more terrible is his conception of the Divine Adversary that frowns upon him. The God whom love beholds rises upon the horizon like mountains which carry summer up their sides to the very top; but that sternly just God whom sinners fear stands cold against the sky, like Mont Blanc; and from his icy sides the soul, quickly sliding, plunges headlong down to unrecalled destruction."

He has hard words for such as get only the form of religion, or but little of its substance.

"There are some Christians whose secular life is an arid, worldly strife, and whose religion is but a turbid sentimentalism. Their life runs along that line where the overflow of the Nile meets the desert. It is the boundary line between sand and mud."

"That gospel which sanctions ignorance and oppression for three millions of men, what fruit or flower has it to shake down for the healing of the nations? It is cursed in its own roots, and blasted in its own boughs."

"Many of our churches defy Protestantism. Grand cathedrals are they, which make us shiver as we enter them. The windows are so constructed as to exclude the light and inspire a religious awe. The walls are of stone, which makes us think of our last home. The ceilings are sombre, and the pews coffin-colored. Then the services are composed to these circumstances, and hushed music goes trembling along the aisles, and men move softly, and would on no account put on their hats before they reach the door; but when they do, they take a long breath, and have such a sense of relief to be in the free air, and comfort themselves with the thought that they've been good Christians!

"Now this idea of worship is narrow and false. The house of God should be a joyous place for the right use of all our faculties."

"There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came."

"The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual."

"My best presentations of the gospel to you are so incomplete! Sometimes, when I am alone, I have such sweet and rapturous visions of the love of God and the truths of his word, that I think, if I could speak to you then, I should move your hearts. I am like a child, who, walking forth some sunny summer's morning, sees grass and flower all shining with drops of dew. 'Oh,' he cries, 'I'll carry these beautiful things to my mother!' And, eagerly plucking them, the dew drops into his little palm, and all the charm is gone. There is but grass in his hand, and no longer pearls."

"There are many professing Christians who are secretly vexed on account of the charity they have to bestow and the self-denial they have to use. If, instead of the smooth prayers which they do pray, they should speak out the things which they really feel, they would say, when they go home at night, 'O Lord, I met a poor curmudgeon of yours to-day, a miserable, unwashed brat, and I gave him sixpence, and I have been sorry for it ever since'; or, 'O Lord, if I had not signed those articles of faith, I might have gone to the theatre this evening. Your religion deprives me of a great deal of enjoyment, but I mean to stick to it. There's no other way of getting into heaven, I suppose.'