I must not conclude this chapter without saying something about the editions of Chopin's works. The original French, German, and English editions all leave much to be desired in the way of correctness. To begin with, the composer's manuscripts were very negligently prepared, and of the German and the English, and even of the French edition, he did not always see the proofs; and, whether he did or not, he was not likely to be a good proof-reader, which presupposes a special talent, or rather disposition. Indeed, that much in the preparation of the manuscripts for the press and the correction of the proofs was left to his friends and pupils may be gathered both from his letters and from other sources. "The first comprehension of the piece," says Schumann, in speaking of the German edition of the Tarantella, "is, unfortunately, rendered very difficult by the misprints with which it is really swarming." Those who assisted Chopin in the work incident to publication—more especially by copying his autographs—were Fontana, Wolff, Gutmann, and in later years Mikuli and Tellefsen.

Here I may fitly insert a letter written by Chopin to Maurice Schlesinger on July 22, 1843 (not 1836, as La Mara supposes), which has some bearing on the subject under discussion. The Impromptu spoken of is the third, Op. 51, in G flat major:—

Dear friend,—In the Impromptu which you have issued with the paper [Gazette musicals] of July 9, there is a confusion in the paging, which makes my composition unintelligible. Though I cannot at all pretend to taking the pains which our friend Moscheles bestows on his works, I consider myself, however, with regard to your subscribers, in duty bound to ask you on this occasion to insert in your next number an erratum:—

Page 3—read page 5. Page 5—read page 3.

If you are too busy or too lazy to write to me, answer me through the erratum in the paper, and that shall signify to me that you, Madame Schlesinger, and your children are all well. —Yours very truly, July 22 [1843]. F. CHOPIN.

The first complete edition of Chopin's works was, according to Karasowski, [FOOTNOTE: More recently the same firm brought out the works of Chopin edited by Jean Kleczynski.] that published in 1864, with the authorisation of the composer's family, by Gebethner and Wolff, of Warsaw. But the most important editions—namely, critical editions—are Tellefsen's (I mention them in chronological order), Klindworth's, Scholtz's, and Breitkopf and Hartel's. Simon Richault, of Paris, the publisher of the first-named edition, which appeared in 1860, says in the preface to it that Tellefsen had in his possession a collection of the works of Chopin corrected by the composer's own hand. As to the violoncello part of the Polonaise, it was printed as Franchomme always played it with the composer. The edition was also to be free from all marks of expression that were not Chopin's own. Notwithstanding all this, Tellefsen's edition left much to be desired.

My friend and fellow-pupil, Thomas Tellefsen [writes Mikuli], who, till Chopin's last breath, had the happiness to be in uninterrupted intercourse with him, was quite in a position to bring out correctly his master's works in the complete edition undertaken by him for Richault. Unfortunately, a serious illness and his death interrupted this labour, so that numerous misprints remained uncorrected.

[FOOTNOTE: Mikuli's spelling of the name is Telefsen, whereas it is Tellefsen on the Norwegian's edition of Chopin's works, in all the dictionaries that mention him, and in the contemporary newspaper notices and advertisements I have come across.]

[FOOTNOTE: I do not know how to reconcile this last remark with the publisher's statement that the edition appeared in 1860 (it was entered at Stationers' Hall on September 20, 1860), and Tellefsen's death at Paris in October, 1874.]

Klindworth's edition, the first volume of which appeared in October, 1873, and the last in March, 1876, at Moscow (P. Jurgenson), in six volumes, is described on the title-page as "Complete works of Fr. Chopin critically revised after the original French, German, and Polish editions, carefully corrected and minutely fingered for pupils." [FOOTNOTE: This edition has been reprinted by Augener & Co., of London.] The work done by Klindworth is one of the greatest merit, and has received the highest commendations of such men as Liszt and Hans von Bulow. Objections that can be made to it are, that the fingering, although excellent, is not always Chopinesque; and that the alteration of the rhythmically-indefinite small notes of the original into rhythmically-definite ones, although facilitating the execution for learners, counteracts the composer's intention. Mikuli holds that an appeal to Chopin's manuscripts is of no use as they are full of slips of the pen—wrong notes and values, wrong accidentals and clefs, wrong slurs and 8va markings, and omissions of dots and chord-intervals. The original French, German, and English editions he regards likewise as unreliable. But of them he gives the preference to the French editions, as the composer oftener saw proofs of them. On the other hand, the German editions, which, he thinks, came out later than the Paris ones, contain subsequently-made changes and improvements. [FOOTNOTE: Take note, however, in connection with this remark, of Chopin's letter of August 30, 1845, on pp. 119-120 of this volume.] Sometimes, no doubt, the Paris edition preceded the German one, but not as a rule. The reader will remember from the letters that Chopin was always anxious that his works should appear simultaneously in all countries, which, of course, was not always practicable. Mikuli based his edition (Leipzig: Fr. Kistner), the preface to which is dated "Lemberg, September, 1879," on his own copies, mostly of Parisian editions, copies which Chopin corrected in the course of his lessons; and on other copies, with numerous corrections from the hand of the master, which were given him by the Countess Delphine Potocka. He had also the assistance of Chopin's pupils the Princess Marcelline Czartoryska and Madame Friederike Streicher (nee Muller), and also of Madame Dubois and Madame Rubio, and of the composer's friend Ferdinand Hiller. Mikuli's edition, like Klindworth's, is fingered, and, as the title-page informs us, "for the most part according to the author's markings." Hermann Scholtz, who edited Chopin's works for Peters, of Leipzig, says in the preface (dated "Dresden, December, 1879") that his critical apparatus consisted of the original French, German, and English editions, various autographs (the Preludes, Op. 28; the Scherzo, Op. 54; the Impromptu, Op. 51; the Nocturnes, Op. 48; the Mazurka, Op. 7, No. 3, and a sketch of the Mazurka, Op. 30, No. 4), and three volumes of Chopin's compositions with corrections, additions, and marks of expression by his own hand, belonging to the master's pupil Madame von Heygendorf (nee von Konneritz). In addition to these advantages he enjoyed the advice of M. Mathias, another pupil of Chopin. The critically-revised edition published (March, 1878—January, 1880) by Breitkopf and Hartel was edited by Woldemar Bargiel, Johannes Brahms, Auguste Franchomme, Franz Liszt (the Preludes), Carl Reinecke, and Ernst Rudorff. The prospectus sets forth that the revision was based on manuscript material (autographs and proofs with the composer's corrections and additions) and the original French and German editions; and that Madame Schumann, M. Franchomme, and friends and pupils of the composer had been helpful with their counsel. Breitkopf and Hartel's edition is the most complete, containing besides all the pianoforte solo and ensemble works published by the composer himself, a greater number of posthumous works (including the songs) than is to be found in any other edition. Klindworth's is a purely pianoforte edition, and excludes the trio, the pieces with violoncello, and the songs. The above enumeration, however, does not exhaust the existing Chopin editions, which, indeed, are almost innumerable, as in the last decade almost every publisher, at least, almost every German publisher, has issued one—among others there are Schuberth's, edited by Alfred Richter, Kahnt's, edited by S. Jadassohn, and Steingraber's, edited by Ed. Mertke. [FOOTNOTE: Among earlier editions I may mention the incomplete OEuvres completes, forming Vols. 21-24 of the Bibliotheque des Pianistes, published by Schonenberger (Paris, 1860).] Voluminous as the material for a critical edition of Chopin's works is, its inconclusiveness, which constantly necessitates appeals to the individual taste and judgment of the editor, precludes the possibility of an edition that will satisfy all in all cases. Chopin's pupils, who reject the editing of their master's works by outsiders, do not accept even the labours of those from among their midst. These reasons have determined me not to criticise, but simply to describe, the most notable editions. In speaking of the disputes about the correctness of the various editions, I cannot help remembering a remark of Mendelssohn's, of which Wenzel told me. "Mendelssohn said on one occasion in his naive manner: 'In Chopin's music one really does not know sometimes whether a thing is right or wrong.'"



CHAPTER XXXI.



CHOPIN'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.—MUSICAL ASPECT OF THE BRITISH METROPOLIS IN 1848.—CULTIVATION OF CHOPIN'S MUSIC IN ENGLAND.—CHOPIN AT EVENING PARTIES, &C.—LETTERS GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS DOINGS AND FEELINGS.—TWO MATINEES MUSICALES GIVEN BY CHOPIN; CRITICISMS ON THEM.—ANOTHER LETTER.—KINDNESS SHOWN HIM.—CHOPIN STARTS FOR SCOTLAND.—A LETTER WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH AND CALDER HOUSE.—HIS SCOTCH FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.—HIS STAY AT DR. LYSCHINSKl'S.—PLAYS AT A CONCERT IN MANCHESTER.—RETURNS TO SCOTLAND, AND GIVES A MATINEE MUSICALE IN GLASGOW AND IN EDINBURGH.—MORE LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND.—BACK TO LONDON.—OTHER LETTERS.—PLAYS AT A "GRAND POLISH BALL AND CONCERT" IN THE GUILDHALL.—LAST LETTER FROM LONDON, AND JOURNEY AND RETURN TO PARIS.



CHOPIN arrived in London, according to Mr. A. J. Hipkins, on April 21, 1848.

[FOOTNOTE: The indebtedness of two writers on Chopin to Mr. Hipkins has already been adverted to in the Preface. But his vivid recollection of Chopin's visit to London in this year, and of the qualities of his playing, has been found of great value also in other published notices dealing with this period. The present writer has to thank Mr. Hipkins, apart from second-hand obligations, for various suggestions, answers to inquiries, and reading the proof-sheets of this chapter.]

He took up his quarters first at 10, Bentinck Street, but soon removed to the house indicated in the following letter, written by him to Franchomme on May 1, 1848:—

Dearest friend,—Here I am, just settled. I have at last a room—fine and large—where I shall be able to breathe and play, and the sun visits me to-day for the first time. I feel less suffocated this morning, but all last week I was good for nothing. How are you and your wife and the dear children? You begin at last to become more tranquil, [FOOTNOTE: This, I think, refers to some loss Franchomme had sustained in his family] do you not? I have some tiresome visits; my letters of introduction are not yet delivered. I trifle away my time, and VOILA. I love you, and once more VOILA.

Yours with all my heart.

My kindest regards to Madame Franchomme. 48, Dover Street. Write to me, I will write to you also.

Were Chopin now to make his appearance in London, what a stir there would be in musical society! In 1848 Billet, Osborne, Kalkbrenner, Halle, and especially Thalberg, who came about the same time across the channel, caused more curiosity. By the way, England was just then heroically enduring an artistic invasion such as had never been seen before; not only from France, but also from Germany and other musical countries arrived day after day musicians who had found that their occupation was gone on the Continent, where people could think of nothing but politics and revolutions. To enumerate all the celebrities then congregated in the British Metropolis would be beyond my power and the scope of this publication, but I must at least mention that among them was no less eminent a creative genius than Berlioz, no less brilliant a vocal star than Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Of other high-priests and high-priestesses of the art we shall hear in the sequel. But although Chopin did not set the Thames on fire, his visit was not altogether ignored by the press. Especially the Athenaeum (H. F. Chorley) and the Musical World (J. W. Davison) honoured themselves by the notice they took of the artist. The former journal not only announced (on April 29) his arrival, but also some weeks previously (on April 8) his prospective advent, saying: "M. Chopin's visit is an event for which we most heartily thank the French Republic."

In those days, and for a long time after, the appreciation and cultivation of Chopin's music was in England confined to a select few. Mr. Hipkins told me that he "had to struggle for years to gain adherents to Chopin's music, while enduring the good-humoured banter of Sterndale Bennett and J. W. Davison." The latter—the author of An Essay on the Works of Frederic Chopin (London, 1843), the first publication of some length on the subject, and a Preface to, or, to be more precise, a Memoir prefixed to Boosey & Co.'s The Mazurkas and Valses of F. Chopin—seems to have in later years changed his early good opinion of the Polish master.

[FOOTNOTE: Two suggestions have been made to me in explanation of this change of opinion: it may have been due to the fear that the rising glory of Chopin might dim that of Mendelssohn; or Davison may have taken umbrage at Chopin's conduct in an affair relative to Mendelssohn. I shall not discuss the probability of these suggestions, but will say a few words with regard to the last-mentioned matter. My source of information is a Paris letter in the Musical World of December 4, 1847. After the death of Mendelssohn some foreign musicians living in Paris proposed to send a letter of condolence to Mrs. Mendelssohn. One part of the letter ran thus: "May it be permitted to us, German artists, far from our country, to offer," &c. The signatures to it were: Rosenhain, Kalkbrenner, Panofka, Heller, Halle, Pixis, and Wolff. Chopin when applied to for his signature wrote: "La lettre venant des Allemands, comment voulez-vous que je m'arroge le droit de la signer?" One would think that no reasonable being could take exception to Chopin's conduct in this affair, and yet the writer in the Musical World comments most venomously on it.]

The battle fought in the pages of the Musical World in 1841 illustrates the then state of matters in England. Hostilities commenced on October 28 with a criticism of the Mazurkas, Op. 41. Of its unparalleled nature the reader shall judge himself:—

Monsieur Frederic Chopin has, by some means or other which we cannot divine, obtained an enormous reputation, a reputation but too often refused to composers of ten times his genius. M. Chopin is by no means a putter down of commonplaces; but he is, what by many would be esteemed worse, a dealer in the most absurd and hyperbolical extravagances. It is a striking satire on the capability for thought possessed by the musical profession, that so very crude and limited a writer should be esteemed, as he is very generally, a profound classical musician. M. Chopin does not want ideas, but they never extend beyond eight or sixteen bars at the utmost, and then he is invariably in nubibus... the works of the composer give us invariably the idea of an enthusiastic school-boy, whose parts are by no means on a par with his enthusiasm, who WILL be original whether he CAN or not. There is a clumsiness about his harmonies in the midst of their affected strangeness, a sickliness about his melodies despite their evidently FORCED unlikeness to familiar phrases, an utter ignorance of design everywhere apparent in his lengthened works...The entire works of Chopin present a motley surface of ranting hyperbole and excruciating cacophony. When he is not THUS singular, he is no better than Strauss or any other waltz compounder... such as admire Chopin, and they are legion, will admire these Mazurkas, which are supereminently Chopin-ical; that do NOT we.

Wessel and Stapleton, the publishers, protested against this shameful criticism, defending Chopin and adducing the opinions of numerous musicians in support of their own. But the valorous editor "ventures to assure the distinguished critics and the publishers that there will be no difficulty in pointing out a hundred palpable faults, and an infinitude of meretricious uglinesses, such as, to real taste and judgment, are intolerable." Three more letters appeared in the following numbers—two for (Amateur and Professor) and one against (Inquirer) Chopin; the editor continuing to insist with as much violence as stupidity that he was right. It is pleasant to turn from this senseless opposition to the friends and admirers of the master. Of them we learn something in Davison's Essay on the Works of F. Chopin, from which I must quote a few passages:—

This Concerto [the E minor] has been made known to the amateurs of music in England by the artist-like performance of Messrs. W. H. Holmes, F. B. Jewson, H. B. Richards, R. Barnett, and other distinguished members of the Royal Academy, where it is a stock piece...The Concerto [in F minor] has been made widely known of late by the clever performance of that true little prodigy Demoiselle Sophie Bohrer....These charming bagatelles [the Mazurkas] have been made widely known in England through the instrumentality of Mr. Moscheles, Mr. Cipriani Potter, Mr. Kiallmark, Madame de Belleville-Oury, Mr. Henry Field (of Bath), Mr. Werner, and other eminent pianists, who enthusiastically admire and universally recommend them to their pupils...To hear one of those eloquent streams of pure loveliness [the nocturnes] delivered by such pianists as Edouard Pirkhert, William Holmes, or Henry Field, a pleasure we frequently enjoyed, is the very transcendency of delight.

[FOOTNOTE: Information about the above-named pianists may be found in the musical biographical dictionaries, with three exceptions-namely, Kiallmark, Werner, and Pirkhert. George Frederick Kiallmark (b. November 7, 1804; d. December 13, 1887), a son of the violinist and composer George Kiallmark, was for many years a leading professor in London. He is said to have had a thorough appreciation and understanding of Chopin's genius, and even in his last years played much of that master's music. He took especial delight in playing Chopin's Nocturnes, no Sunday ever passed without his family hearing him play two or three of them.—Louis Werner (whose real name was Levi) was the son of a wealthy and esteemed Jewish family living at Clapham. He studied music in London under Moscheles, and, though not an eminent pianist, was a good teacher. His amiability assured him a warm welcome in society.—Eduard Pirkhert died at Vienna, aged 63, on February 28, 1881. To Mr. Ernst Pauer, who is never appealed to in vain, I am indebted for the following data as well as for the subject—matter of my notice on Werner: "Eduard Pirkhert, born at Graz in 1817, was a pupil of Anton Halm and Carl Czerny. He was a shy and enormously diligent artist, who, however, on account of his nervousness, played, like Henselt, rarely in public. His execution was extraordinary and his tone beautiful. In 1855 he became professor at the Vienna Conservatorium." Mr. Pauer never heard him play Chopin.]

After this historical excursus let us take up again the record of our hero's doings and sufferings in London.

Chopin seems to have gone to a great many parties of various kinds, but he could not always be prevailed upon to give the company a taste of his artistic quality. Brinley Richards saw him at an evening party at the house of the politician Milner Gibson, where he did not play, although he was asked to do so. According to Mr. Hueffer, [FOOTNOTE: Chopin in Fortnightly Review of September, 1877, reprinted in Musical Studies (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1880).] he attended, likewise without playing, an evening party (May 6) at the house of the historian Grote. Sometimes ill-health prevented him from fulfilling his engagements; this, for instance, was the case on the occasion of a dinner which Macready is said to have given in his honour, and to which Thackeray, Mrs. Procter, Berlioz, and Julius Benedict were invited. On the other hand, Chopin was heard at the Countess of Blessington's (Gore House, Kensington) and the Duchess of Sutherland's (Stafford House). On the latter occasion Benedict played with him a duet of Mozart's. More than thirty years after, Sir Julius had still a clear recollection of "the great pains Chopin insisted should be taken in rehearsing it, to make the rendering of it at the concert as perfect as possible." John Ella heard Chopin play at Benedict's. Of another of Chopin's private performances in the spring of 1848 we read in the Supplement du Dictionnaire de la Conversation, where Fiorentino writes:

We were at most ten or twelve in a homely, comfortable little salon, equally propitious to conversation and contemplation. Chopin took the place of Madame Viardot at the piano, and plunged us into ineffable raptures. I do not know what he played to us; I do not know how long our ecstasy lasted: we were no longer on earth; he had transported us into unknown regions, into a sphere of flame and azure, where the soul, freed from all corporeal bonds, floats towards the infinite. This was, alas! the song of the swan.

The sequel will show that the concluding sentence is no more than a flourish of the pen. Whether Chopin played at Court, as he says in a letter to Gutmann he expected to do, I have not ascertained. Nor have I been able to get any information about a dinner which, Karasowski relates, some forty countrymen of Chopin's got up in his honour when they heard of his arrival in London. According to this authority the pianist-composer rose when the proceedings were drawing to an end, and many speeches extolling him as a musician and patriot had been made, and spoke, if not these words, to this effect: "My dear countrymen! The proofs of your attachment and love which you have just given me have truly moved me. I wish to thank you, but lack the talent of expressing my feelings in words; I invite you therefore to accompany me to my lodgings and to receive there my thanks at the piano." The proposal was received with enthusiasm, and Chopin played to his delighted and insatiable auditors till two o'clock in the morning. What a crush, these forty or more people in Chopin's lodgings! However, that is no business of mine.

[FOOTNOTE: After reading the above, Mr. Hipkins remarked: "I fancy this dinner resembled the dinner which will go down to posterity as given by the Hungarians of London to Liszt in [1886], which was really a private dinner given by Mrs. Bretherton to fifteen people, of whom her children and mine were four. NO Hungarians."]

The documents—letters and newspaper advertisements and notices—bearing on this period of Chopin's life are so plentiful that they tell the story without the help of many additions and explanatory notes. This is satisfactory, for one grain of fact is more precious than a bushel of guesses and hearsays.

Chopin to Gutmann; London, 48, Dover Street, Piccadilly, Saturday, May 6, 1848:—

Dear friend,—Here I am at last, settled in this whirlpool of London. It is only a few days since I began to breathe; for it is only a few days since the sun showed itself. I have seen M. D'Orsay, and notwithstanding all the delay of my letter he received me very well. Be so good as to thank the duchess for me and him. I have not yet made all my calls, for many persons to whom I have letters of introduction are not yet here. Erard was charming; he sent me a piano. I have a Broadwood and a Pleyel, which makes three, and yet I do not find time to play them. I have many visitors, and my days pass like lightning—I have not even had a moment to write to Pleyel. Let me know how you are getting on. In what state of mind are you? How are your people? With my people things are not going well. I am much vexed about this. In spite of that I must think of making a public appearance; a proposal has been made to me to play at the Philharmonic, [FOOTNOTE: "Chopin, we are told," says the Musical World of May 27, 1848, "was invited to play at the Philharmonic, but declined."] but I would rather not. I shall apparently finish off, after playing at Court before the Queen [chez la reine], by giving a matinee, limited to a number of persons, at a private residence [hotel particulier]. I wish that this would terminate thus. But these projects are only projects in the air. Write to me a great deal about yourself. —Yours ever, my old Gut.,

CHOPIN.

P.S.—I heard the other evening Mdlle. Lind in La Sonnambula. [FOOTNOTE: Jenny Lind made her first appearance at Her Majesty's Theatre in the season 1848, on May 4, as Amina, in La Sonnambula. The Queen was present on that occasion. Pauline Garcia made her first appearance, likewise as Amina, at Covent Garden Theatre, on May 9.] It was very fine; I have made her acquaintance. Madame Viardot also came to see me. She will make her debuts at the rival theatre [Covent Garden], likewise in La Sonnambula. All the pianists of Paris are here. Prudent played his Concerto at the Philharmonic with little success, for it is necessary to play classical music there. Thalberg is engaged for twelve concerts at the theatre where Lind is [Her Majesty's, Haymarket]. Halle is going to play Mendelssohn at the rival theatre.

Chopin to his friend Grzymala; Thursday, May 11, 1848:—

I have just come from the Italian Opera, where Jenny Lind appeared to-day, for the first time, as Sonnambula, and the Queen showed herself for the first time to the people after a long retirement. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin must have begun this letter on the 4th of May, and dated it later on; for on the 11th of May Jenny Lind sang in La Figlia del Reggimento, and the presence of the Queen at the performance is not mentioned in the newspaper accounts of it. See preceding foot-note.] Both were, of course, of much interest to me; more especially, however, Wellington, who, like an old, faithful dog in a cottage, sat in the box below his crowned mistress. I have also made Jenny Lind's personal acquaintance: when, a few days afterwards, I paid her a visit, she received me in the most amiable manner, and sent me an excellent "stall" for the opera performance. I was capitally seated and heard excellently. This Swede is indeed an original from top to toe! She does not show herself in the ordinary light, but in the magic rays of an aurora borealis. Her singing is infallibly pure and sure; but what I admired most was her piano, which has an indescribable charm. "Your

FREDERICK.

Of Chopin's visit Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt had to the last years of her life a most pleasing and vivid recollection. She sang to him Polskas, [FOOTNOTE: Polskas are dances of Polish origin, popular in Sweden, whose introduction dates from the time of the union of the crowns of Sweden and Poland in 1587.] which delighted him greatly. The way Madame Goldschmidt spoke of Chopin showed unmistakably that he made the best possible impression upon her, not only as an artist, but also as a man—she was sure of his goodness, and that he could not but have been right in the Sand affair, I mean as regards the rupture. She visited him when she went in the following year (1849) to Paris.

In his letter to Gutmann, Chopin speaks of his intention to give a matinee at a private house. And he more than realised it; for he not only gave one, but two—the first at the house of Mrs. Sartoris (nee Adelaide Kemble) and the second at the house of Lord Falmouth. Here are two advertisements which appeared in the Times.

June 15, 1848:—

Monsieur Chopin will give a Matinee musicale, at No. 99, Eaton Place, on Friday, June 23, to commence at 3 o'clock. A limited number of tickets, one guinea each, with full particulars, at Cramer, Beale & Co.'s, 201, Regent Street.

July 3 and 4, 1848:—

Monsieur Chopin begs to announce that his second Matinee musicale will take place on Friday next, July 7, at the residence of the Earl of Falmouth, No. 2, St. James's Square. To commence at half-past 3. Tickets, limited in number, and full particulars at Cramer, Beale & Co.'s, 201, Regent Street.

The Musical World (July 8, 1848) says about these performances:—

M. Chopin has lately given two performances of his own pianoforte music at the residence of Mrs. Sartoris (late Miss Adelaide Kemble), which seem to have given much pleasure to his audiences, among whom Mdlle. Lind, who was present at the first, seems to be the most enthusiastic. We were not present at either, and, therefore, have nothing to say on the subject.

[FOOTNOTE: Of course, the above-quoted advertisements prove the reporter to be wrong in this particular; there was only one at the house of Mrs. Sartoris.]

From an account of the first matinee in the Athenaeum we learn that Chopin played nocturnes, etudes, mazurkas, two waltzes, and the Berceuse, but none of his more developed works, such as sonatas, concertos, scherzos, and ballades. The critic tries to analyse the master's style of execution—a "mode" in which "delicacy, picturesqueness, elegance, and humour are blended so as to produce that rare thing, a new delight"—pointing out his peculiar fingering, treatment of scale and shake, tempo rubato, &c. But although the critic speaks no less appreciatively of the playing than of the compositions, the tenor of the notice of the second matinee (July 15, 1848) shows that the former left nevertheless something to be desired. "Monsieur Chopin played better at his second than at his first matinee—not with more delicacy (that could hardly be), but with more force and brio." Along with other compositions of his, Chopin played on this occasion his Scherzo in B flat and his Etude in C sharp minor. Another attraction of the matinee was the singing of Madame Viardot-Garcia, "who, besides her inimitable airs with Mdlle. de Mendi, and her queerly-piquant Mazurkas, gave the Cenerentola rondo, graced with great brilliancy; and a song by Beethoven, 'Ich denke dein.'"

[FOOTNOTE: No doubt, those Mazurkas by Chopin which, adapting to them Spanish words, she had arranged for voice and piano. Hiller wrote mostenthusiastically of these arrangements and her performance of them.]

Mr. Salaman said, at a meeting of the London Musical Association (April 5, 1880), in the course of a discussion on the subject of Chopin, that he was present at the matinee at the house of Mrs. Sartoris, and would never forget the concert-giver's playing, especially of the waltz in D flat. "I remember every bar, how he played it, and the appearance of his long, attenuated fingers during the time he was playing. [FOOTNOTE: Their thinness may have made them appear long, but they were not really so. See Appendix III.] He seemed quite exhausted." Mr. Salaman was particularly struck by the delicacy and refinement of Chopin's touch, and the utmost exquisiteness of expression.

To Chopin, as the reader will see in the letter addressed to Franchomme, and dated August 6th and 11th, these semi-public performances had only the one redeeming point—that they procured him much-needed money, otherwise he regarded them as a great annoyance. And this is not to be wondered at, if we consider the physical weakness under which he was then labouring. When Chopin went before these matinees to Broadwood's to try the pianoforte on which he was to play, he had each time to be carried up the flight of stairs which led to the piano-room. Chopin had also to be carried upstairs when he came to a concert which his pupil Lindsay Sloper gave in this year in the Hanover Square Rooms. But nothing brings his miserable condition so vividly before us as his own letters.

Chopin to Grzymala, London, July 18, 1848:—

My best thanks for your kind lines and the accompanying letter from my people. Heaven be thanked, they are all well; but why are they concerned about me? I cannot become sadder than I am, a real joy I have not felt for a long time. Indeed, I feel nothing at all, I only vegetate, waiting patiently for my end. Next week I go to Scotland to Lord Torphichen, the brother-in- law of my Scottish friends, the Misses Stirling, who are already with him (in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh). He wrote to me and invited me heartily, as did also Lady Murray, an influential lady of high rank there, who takes an extraordinary interest in music, not to mention the many invitations I have received from various parts of England. But I cannot wander about from one place to another like a strolling musician; such a vagabond' life is hateful to me, and not conducive to my health. I intend to remain in Scotland till the 29th of August, on which day I go as far as Manchester, where I am engaged to play in public. I shall play there twice without orchestra, and receive for this 60 [pounds]. The Alboni comes also, but all this does not interest me—I just seat myself at the piano, and begin to play. I shall stay during this time with rich manufacturers, with whom also Neukomm [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski has Narkomm, which is, of course, either a misreading or a misprint, probably the former, as it is to be found in all editions of his book.] has stayed. What I shall do next I don't know yet. If only someone could foretell whether I shall not fall sick here during the winter..."Your

FREDERICK.

Had Chopin, when he left Paris, really in view the possibility of settling in London? There was at the time a rumour of this being the case. The Athenaeum (April 8, 1848), in the note already adverted to, said:—"M. Chopin is expected, if not already here—it is even added to remain in England." But if he embraced the idea at first, he soon began to loosen his grasp of it, and, before long, abandoned it altogether. In his then state of health existence would have been a burden anywhere, but it was a greater one away from his accustomed surroundings. Moreover, English life to be enjoyable requires a robustness of constitution, sentimental and intellectual as well as physical, which the delicately-organised artist, even in his best time, could not boast of. If London and the rest of Britain was not to the mind of Chopin, it was not for want of good-will among the people. Chopin's letters show distinctly that kindness was showered upon him from all sides. And these letters do not by any means contain a complete roll of those who were serviceable to him. The name of Frederick Beale, the publisher, for instance, is not to be found there, and yet he is said, with what truth I do not know, to have attached himself to the tone-poet.

[FOOTNOTE: Mr. Hipkins heard Chopin play at Broadwood's to Beale the Waltzes in D flat major and C sharp minor (Nos. 1 and 2 of Op. 64), subsequently published by Cramer, Beale and Co. But why did the publisher not bring out the whole opus (three waltzes, not two), which had already been in print in France and Germany for nine or ten months? Was his attachment to the composer weaker than his attachment to his cash-box?]

The attentions of the piano-makers, on the other hand, are duly remembered. In connection with them I must not forget to record the fact that Mr. Henry Fowler Broadwood had a concert grand, the first in a complete iron frame, expressly made for Chopin, who, unfortunately, did not live to play upon it.

[FOOTNOTE: For particulars about the Broadwood pianos used by Chopin in England and Scotland (and he used there no others at his public concerts and principal private entertainments), see the List of John Broadwood & Sons' Exhibits at the International Inventions Exhibition (1885), a pamphlet full of interesting information concerning the history and construction of the pianoforte. It is from the pen of A. J. Hipkins.]

A name one misses with surprise in Chopin's letters is that of his Norwegian pupil Tellefsen, who came over from Paris to London, and seems to have devoted himself to his master. [FOOTNOTE: Tellefsen, says Mr. Hipkins, was nearly always with Chopin.] Of his ever-watchful ministering friend Miss Stirling and her relations we shall hear more in the following letters.

Chopin started for Scotland early in August, 1848, for on the 6th August he writes to Franchomme that he had left London a few days before.

Chopin to Franchomme; Edinburgh, August 6 [1848]. Calder House, August 11:—

Very dear friend,—I do not know what to say. The best, it seems to me, is not even to attempt to console you for the loss of your father. I know your grief—time itself assuages little such sorrows. I left London a few days ago. I made the journey to Edinburgh (407 miles) in twelve hours. After having taken a day's rest in Edinburgh, I went to Calder House, twelve miles from Edinburgh, the mansion of Lord Torphichen, brother-in-law of Madame Erskine, where I expect to remain till the end of the month and to rest after my great doings in London. I gave two matinees, which it appears have given pleasure, but which, for all that, did not the less bore me. Without them, however, I do not know how I could have passed three months in this dear London, with large apartments (absolutely necessary), carriage, and valet. My health is not altogether bad, but I become more feeble, and the air here does not yet agree with me. Miss Stirling was going to write to you from London, and asks me to beg you to excuse her. The fact is that these ladies had many preparations to make before their journey to Scotland, where they intend to remain some months. There is in Edinburgh a pupil of yours, Mr. Drechsler, I believe.

[FOOTNOTE: Louis Drechsler (son of the Dessau violoncellist Carl Drechsler and uncle of the Edinburgh violoncellist and conductor Carl Drechsler Hamilton), who came to Edinburgh in August, 1841, and died there on June 25,1860. From an obituary notice in a local paper I gather that he studied under Franchomme in 1845.]

He came to see me in London; he appeared to me a fine young fellow, and he loves you much. He plays duets [fait de la musique] with a great lady of this country, Lady Murray, one of my sexagenarian pupils in London, to whom I have also promised a visit in her beautiful mansion. [FOOTNOTE: The wife of Lord (Sir John Archibald) Murray, I think. At any rate, this lady was very musical and in the habit of playing with Louis Drechsler.] But I do not know how I shall do it, for I have promised to be in Manchester on the 28th of August to play at a concert for 60 pounds. Neukomm is there, and, provided that he does not improvise on the same day [et pourvu qu'il ne m'improvise pas le meme jour], I reckon on earning my 60 francs [he means, of course, "60 pounds"].

[FOOTNOTE: Thinking that this remark had some hidden meaning, I applied to Franchomme for an explanation; but he wrote to me as follows: "Chopin trouvait que Neukomm etait un musicien ennuyeux, et il lui etait desagreable de penser que Neukomm pourrait improviser dans le concert dans lequel il devrait jouer."]

After that I don't know what will become of me. I should like very much if they were to give me a pension for life for having composed nothing, not even an air a la Osborne or Sowinski (both of them excellent friends), the one an Irishman, the other a compatriot of mine (I am prouder of them than of the rejected representative Antoine de Kontski— Frenchman of the north and animal of the south). [FOOTNOTE: "Frenchmen of the north" used to be a common appellation of the Poles.]

After these parentheses, I will tell you truly that I know [FOOTNOTE: Here probably "not" ought to be added.] what will become of me in autumn. At any rate, if you get no news from me do not complain of me, for I think very often of writing to you. If you see Mdlle. de Rozieres or Grzymala, one or the other of them will have heard something—if not from me, from some friends. The park here is very beautiful, the lord of the manor very excellent, and I am as well as I am permitted to be. Not one proper musical idea. I am out of my groove; I am like, for instance, an ass at a masked ball, a chanterelle [first, i.e., highest string] of a violin on a double bass— astonished, amazed, lulled to sleep as if I were hearing a trait [a run or a phrase] of Bodiot [FOOTNOTE: That is, Charles Nicolas Baudiot (1773-1849), the violoncellist, at one time professor at the Conservatoire. He published a school and many compositions for his instrument.] (before the 24th of February), [FOOTNOTE: The revolution of February 24, 1848.] or a stroke of the bow of M. Cap [FOOTNOTE: This gentleman was an amateur player of the violoncello and other stringed instruments.] (after the June days). [FOOTNOTE: The insurrection of the Red Republicans on June 23-26, 1848.] I hope they are still flourishing, for I cannot do without them in writing. But another real question is, that I hope you have no friends to deplore in all these terrible affairs. And the health of Madame Franchomme and of the little children? Write me a line, and address it to London, care of Mr. Broadwood, 33, Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square. I have here a perfect (material) tranquillity, and pretty Scotch airs. I wish I were able to compose a little, were it only to please these good ladies—Madame Erskine and Mdlle. Stirling. I have a Broadwood piano in my room, the Pleyel of Miss Stirling in my salon. I lack neither paper nor pens. I hope that you also will compose something, and may God grant that I hear it soon newly born. I have friends in London who advise me to pass there the winter.—But I shall listen only to my I do not know what [mon je ne sais quoi]; or, rather, I shall listen to the last comer—this comes often to the same thing as weighing well. Adieu dear, dear friend! My most sincere wishes to Madame Franchomme for her children. I hope that Rene amuses himself with his bass, that Cecile works well, and that their little sister always reads her books. Remember me to Madame Lasserve, I pray you, and correct my orthography as well as my French.

The following words are written along the margin:—

The people here are ugly, but, it would seem, good. As a compensation there are charming, apparently mischievous, cattle, perfect milk, butter, eggs, and tout ce qui s'en suit, cheese and chickens.

To save the reader from becoming confused by allusions in Chopin's letters to names of unknown persons and places, I will now say a few words about the composer's Scotch friends. The Stirlings of Keir, generally regarded as the principal family of the name, are said to be descended from Walter de Striveline, Strivelyn, or Strivelyng, Lucas of Strivelyng (1370-1449) being the first possessor of Keyr. The family was for about two centuries engaged in the East India and West India trade. Archibald Stirling, the father of the late baronet, went, as William Fraser relates in The Stirlings of Keir, like former younger sons, to Jamaica, where he was a planter for nearly twenty-five years. He succeeded his brother James in 1831, greatly improved the mansion, and died in 1847. When Chopin visited Keir it was in the possession of William Stirling, who, in 1865, became Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (his mother was a daughter of Sir John Maxwell), and is well-known by his literary works—Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V. (1852), Velasquez (1855), &c. He was the uncle of Jane Stirling and Mrs. Erskine, daughters (the former the youngest daughter) of John Stirling, of Kippendavie and Kippenross, and friends of Chopin. W. Hanna, the editor of the Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, says that Jane Stirling was a cousin and particular friend of Thomas Erskine. The latter used in later life to regard her and the Duchess de Broglie as the most remarkable women he had ever met:—

In her later years she lived much in Paris, and counted among her friends there Ary Scheffer. In his "Christus Consolator," this eminent artist has presented in one of the figures his ideal of female beauty, and was struck on being first introduced to Miss Stirling to find in her the almost exact embodiment of that ideal. She was introduced afterwards in many of his pictures.

In a letter addressed to Mrs. Schwabe, and dated February 14, 1859, we read about her:—

She was ill for eight weeks, and suffered a great deal...I know you will feel this deeply, for you could appreciate the purity and beauty of that stream of love which flowed through her whole life. I don't think that I ever knew anyone who seemed more entirely to have given up self, and devoted her whole being to the good of others. I remember her birth like yesterday, and I never saw anything in her but what was lovable from the beginning to the end of her course.

Lindsay Sloper, who lived in Paris from 1841 to 1846, told me that Miss Stirling, who was likewise staying there, took for some time lessons from him. As she wished to become a pupil of Chopin, he spoke to his master about her. Chopin, Lindsay Sloper said, was pleased with her playing, and soon began to like her.

[FOOTNOTE: To the above I must append a cautionary foot-note. In his account to me Lindsay Sloper made two mistakes which prove that his memory was not one of the most trustworthy, and suggest even the possibility that his Miss Stirling was a different person from Chopin's friend. His mistakes were these: he called Mrs. Erskine, who was with Miss Stirling in Paris, her aunt instead of her sister; and thought that Miss Stirling was about eighteen years old when he taught her. The information I shall give farther on seems to show that she was older rather than younger than Chopin; indeed, Mr Hipkins is of opinion that she was in 1848 nearer fifty than forty.]

To her the composer dedicated his Deux Nocturnes, Op. 55, which he published in August, 1844. It was thought that she was in love with Chopin, and there were rumours of their going to be married. Gutmann informed me that Chopin said to him one day when he was ill: "They have married me to Miss Stirling; she might as well marry death." Of Miss Jane Stirling's elder sister Katherine, who, in 1811, married her cousin James Erskine, and lost her husband already in 1816, Thomas Erskine says: "She was an admirable woman, faithful and diligent in all duties, and unwearied in her efforts to help those who needed her help." Lord Torphichen, at whose residence (Calder House, twelve miles from Edinburgh) Chopin passed much of his time in Scotland, was, as we learn from the composer's letters, a brother-in-law of Miss Stirling and Mrs. Erskine. Johnstone Castle (twelve miles from Glasgow), where Chopin was also received as a guest, belonged to the Houston family, friends of the Erskines and Stirlings, but, I think, no relations. The death of Ludovic Houston, Esq., in 1862, is alluded to in one of Thomas Erskine's letters.

But Chopin, while in Scotland, was not always staying in manors and castles, now and then he was housed less aristocratically, though perhaps not less, nay, probably more, comfortably. Such humbler quarters he found at the house (10, Warriston Crescent) of Dr. Lyschinski, a Pole by birth, and a refugee, who after studying medicine in Edinburgh practised it there until a few years ago when he removed to London. For the information which I am now going to give I am indebted to Mrs. Lyschinski. Among those who received Chopin at the Edinburgh railway station was Dr. Lyschinski who addressed him in Polish. The composer put up at an hotel (perhaps the London Hotel, in St. Andrew's Square). Next day—Miss Paterson, a neighbour, having placed her carriage at Chopin's disposal—Mrs. Lyschinski took him out for a drive. He soon got tired of the hotel, in fact, felt it quite unbearable, and told the doctor, to whom he had at once taken a fancy, that he could not do without him. Whereupon the latter said: "Well, then you must come to my house; and as it is rather small, you must be satisfied with the nursery." So the children were sent to a friend's house, and the nursery was made into a bedroom for the illustrious guest, an adjoining bedroom being prepared for his servant Daniel, an Irish-Frenchman. Unless the above refers to Chopin's return to Scotland in September, after his visit to Manchester, Mrs. Lyschinski confuses her reminiscences a little, for, as the last-quoted letter proves, he tarried, on his first arrival, only one day in Edinburgh. But the facts, even if not exactly grouped, are, no doubt, otherwise correctly remembered. Chopin rose very late in the day, and in the morning had soup in his room. His hair was curled daily by the servant, and his shirts, boots, and other things were of the neatest—in fact, he was a petit-maitre, more vain in dress than any woman. The maid-servants found themselves strictly excluded from his room, however indispensable their presence might seem to them in the interests of neatness and cleanliness. Chopin was so weak that Dr. Lyschinski had always to carry him upstairs. After dinner he sat before the fire, often shivering with cold. Then all on a sudden he would cross the room, seat himself at the piano, and play himself warm. He could bear neither dictation nor contradiction: if you told him to go to the fire, he would go to the other end of the room where the piano stood. Indeed, he was imperious. He once asked Mrs. Lyschinski to sing. She declined. At this he was astonished and quite angry. "Doctor, would you take it amiss if I were to force your wife to do it?" The idea of a woman refusing him anything seemed to him preposterous. Mrs. Lyschinski says that Chopin was gallant to all ladies alike, but thinks that he had no heart. She used to tease him about women, saying, for instance, that Miss Stirling was a particular friend of his. He replied that he had no particular friends among the ladies, that he gave to all an equal share of his attention. "Not even George Sand then," she asked, "is a particular friend?" "Not even George Sand," was the reply. Had Mrs. Lyschinski known the real state of matters between Chopin and George Sand, she certainly would not have asked that question. He, however, by no means always avoided the mention of his faithless love. Speaking one day of his thinness he remarked that she used to call him mon cher cadavre. Miss Stirling was much about Chopin. I may mention by the way that Mrs. Lyschinski told me that Miss Stirling was much older than Chopin, and her love for him, although passionate, purely Platonic. Princess Czartoryska arrived some time after Chopin, and accompanied him, my informant says, wherever he went. But, as we see from one of his letters, her stay in Scotland was short. The composer was always on the move. Indeed, Dr. Lyschinski's was hardly more than a pied-a-terre for him: he never stayed long, and generally came unexpectedly. A number of places where Chopin was a guest are mentioned in his letters. Mrs. Lyschinski thinks that he also visited the Duke of Hamilton.

At the end of August and at the end of September and beginning of October, this idling was interrupted by serious work, and a kind of work which, at no time to his liking, was particularly irksome in the then state of his health.

The Manchester Guardian of August 19, 1848, contained the following advertisement:—

Concert Hall.—The Directors beg to announce to the Subscribers that a Dress Concert has been fixed for Monday, the 28th of August next, for which the following performers have already been engaged: Signora Alboni, Signora Corbari, Signer Salvi, and Mons. Chopin.

From an account of the concert in the same paper (August 30), the writer of which declares the concert to have been the most brilliant of the season, we learn that the orchestra, led by Mr. Seymour, played three overtures—Weber's Ruler of the Spirits, Beethoven's Prometheus, and Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia; and that Chopin performed an Andante and Scherzo, and a Nocturne, Etudes, and the Berceuse of his own composition. With regard to Chopin we read in this critique:—

With the more instrumental portion of the audience, Mons. Chopin was perhaps an equal feature of interest with Alboni, as he was preceded by a high musical reputation. Chopin appears to be about thirty years of age. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin, says Mr. Hipkins, had a young look, although much wasted.] He is very spare in frame, and there is an almost painful air of feebleness in his appearance and gait. This vanishes when he seats himself at the instrument, in which he seems for the time perfectly absorbed. Chopin's music and style of performance partake of the same leading characteristics— refinement rather than vigour—subtle elaboration rather than simple comprehensiveness in composition—an elegant rapid touch, rather than a firm, nervous grasp of the instrument. Both his compositions and playing appear to be the perfection of chamber music—fit to be associated with the most refined instrumental quartet and quartet playing—but wanting breadth and obviousness of design, and executive power, to be effective in a large hall. These are our impressions from hearing Mons. Chopin for the first time on Monday evening. He was warmly applauded by many of the most accomplished amateurs in the town, and he received an encore in his last piece, a compliment thus accorded to each of the four London artists who appeared at the concert.

From the criticism of the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (August 30, 1848), I cull the following remarks:—

We can, with great sincerity, say that he delighted us. Though we did not discover in him the vigour of Thalberg, yet there was a chasteness and purity of style, a correctness of manipulation combined with a brilliance of touch, and delicate sensibility of expression which we never heard excelled. He played in the second act [part]... and elicited a rapturous encore. He did not, however, repeat any part, but treated the audience with what appeared to be a fragment of great beauty.

Mr. Osborne, in a paper on Chopin read before the London Musical Association, says:—

On a tour which I made with Alboni, I met Chopin at Manchester, where he was announced to play at a grand concert without orchestra. He begged I should not be present. "You, my dear Osborne," said he, "who have heard me so often in Paris, remain with those impressions. My playing will be lost in such a large room, and my compositions will be ineffective. Your presence at the concert will be painful both to you and me."

Mr. Osborne told his audience further that notwithstanding this appeal he was present in a remote corner of the room. I may add that although he could absent himself from the hall for the time Chopin was playing, he could not absent himself from the concert, for, as the papers tell us, he acted as accompanist. The impression which Chopin's performance on this occasion left upon his friend's mind is described in the following few sad words: "His playing was too delicate to create enthusiasm, and I felt truly sorry for him."

Soon after the concert Chopin returned to Scotland. How many days (between August 23 and September 7?) he remained in Manchester, I do not know, but it is well known that while staying there he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Salis Schwabe. To Mrs. Salis Schwabe, a lady noted for her benevolence, Thomas Erskine addressed the letter concerning Miss Jane Stirling a part of which I quoted on one of the foregoing pages of this chapter. The reader remembers, of course, Chopin's prospective allusions to the Manchester concert in his letters to Franchomme (August 6, 1848) and Grzymala (July 18, 1848).

About a month after the concert at which he played in Manchester, Chopin gave one of his own in Glasgow. Here is what may be read in the Courier of September 28 and previous days:—

Monsieur Chopin has the honour to announce that his Matinee musicals will take place on Wednesday, the 27th September, in the Merchant Hall, Glasgow. To commence at half-past two o'clock. Tickets, limited in number, half-a-guinea each, and full particulars to be had from Mr. Muir Wood, 42, Buchanan Street.

The net profits of this concert are said to have been 60 pounds. Mr. Muir Wood relates:—

I was then a comparative stranger in Glasgow, but I was told that so many private carriages had never been seen at any concert in the town. In fact, it was the county people who turned out, with a few of the elite of Glasgow society. Being a morning concert, the citizens were busy otherwise, and half- a-guinea was considered too high a sum for their wives and daughters.

No doubt Chopin's playing and compositions must have been to the good Glasgow citizens of that day what caviare is to the general. In fact, Scotland, as regards music, had at that period not yet emerged from its state of primitive savagery. But if we may believe the learned critic in the Glasgow Courier, Chopin's matinee was numerously attended, and the audience, which consisted of "the beauty and fashion, indeed of the very elite of the West-end," thoroughly enjoyed the playing of the concert-giver and the singing of Madame Adelasio de Margueritte who assisted him. I think the reader will be interested by the following specimen of criticism for more than one reason:—

The performance was certainly of the highest order in point of musical attainment and artistic skill, and was completely successful in interesting and delighting everyone present for an hour and a half. Visited as we now are by the highest musical talent, by this great player and the other eminent composer, it must be difficult for each successive candidate for our patronage and applause to produce in sufficient quantity that essential element to success—novelty; but M. Chopin has proved satisfactorily that it is not easy to estimate the capabilities of the instrument he handles with so much grace and ingenuity, or limit the skill and power whose magic touch makes it pour forth its sublime strains to electrify and delight anew the astonished listener. M. Chopin's treatment of the pianoforte is peculiar to himself, and his style blends in beautiful harmony and perfection the elegant, the picturesque, and the humorous. We cannot at present descend to practical illustrations in proof of these observations, but feel persuaded we only express the feelings of all who attended yesterday when we say that the pianist produces, without extraordinary effort, not only pleasing, but new musical delights. Madame Adelasio has a beautiful voice, which she manages with great ease and occasional brilliancy. She sang several airs with much taste and great acceptance. We may mention that all the pieces were rapturously applauded, and the audience separated with expressions of the highest gratification.

Clearly this critic was not without judgment, although his literary taste and skill leave much to be desired. That there were real Chopin enthusiasts in Glasgow is proved by an effusion, full of praise and admiration, which the editor received from a correspondent and inserted on September 30, two days after the above criticism. But, without indulging our curiosity further, we will now take our leave of Glasgow and Glasgow critics.

On October 4, Chopin gave an evening concert in Edinburgh. Here is the programme:—

HOPETOUN ROOMS, QUEEN STREET. MONSIEUR CHOPIN'S SOIREE MUSICALE.

Programme.

1. Andante et Impromptu. 2. Etudes. 3. Nocturne et Berceuse. 4. Grande Valse Brillante. 5. Andante precede d'un Largo. 6. Preludes, Ballade, Mazurkas et Valses.

To commence at half-past eight o'clock. Tickets, limited to number, half-a-guinea each. To be had, &c.

Mrs. Lyschinski told me that this concert was chiefly attended by the nobility. Half-a-guinea had never been charged for admission to a concert (which is probably overstating the case), and Chopin was little known. Miss Stirling, who was afraid the hall might not be filled, bought fifty pounds' worth of tickets. The piano on which Chopin played (one sent by Broadwood, and used in Glasgow as well as in Edinburgh) was afterwards sold for 30 pounds above the price. Thus, at any rate, runs the legend.

In the Edinburgh Courant, which contained on September 30 and on other days an advertisement similar to the Glasgow one (with the addition of a programme, consisting, however, only of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th items of the one above given), there appeared on October 7, 1848, a notice of the concert, a part of which may find a place here:—

This talented pianist gratified his admirers by a performance on Wednesday evening in the Hopetoun Rooms, where a select and highly fashionable audience assembled to welcome him on his first appearance in Edinburgh...Chopin's compositions have been too long before the musical portion of Europe, and have been too highly appreciated to require any comment, further than that they are among the best specimens of classical excellence in pianoforte music. Of his execution we need say nothing further than that it is the most finished we have ever heard. He has neither the ponderosity nor the digital power of a Mendelssohn, a Thalberg, or Liszt; consequently his execution would appear less effective in a large room; but as a chamber pianist he stands unrivalled. Notwithstanding the amount of musical entertainment already afforded the Edinburgh public this season, the rooms were filled with an audience who, by their judicious and well-timed applause, testified their appreciation of the high talent of Monsieur Chopin.

An Edinburgh correspondent of the Musical World, who signs himself "M.," confirms (October 14, 1848) the statements of the critic of the Courant. From this communication we learn that one of the etudes played was in F minor (probably No. 2 of Op. 25, although there are two others in the same key—No. 9 of Op. 10 and No. 1 of Trois Etudes without opus number). The problematical Andante precede d'un Largo was, no doubt, a juxtaposition of two of his shorter compositions, this title being chosen to vary the programme. From Mr. Hipkins I learned that at this Chopin played frequently the slow movement from his Op. 22, Grande Polonaise preceded d'un Andante Spianato.

And now we will let Chopin again speak for himself.

Chopin to Grzymala; Keir, Perthshire, Sunday, October 1, 1848:—

No post, no railway, also no carriage (not even for taking the air), no boat, not a dog to be seen—all desolate, desolate! My dearest friend,—Just at the moment when I had already begun to write to you on another sheet, your and my sister's letters were brought to me. Heaven be thanked that cholera has hitherto spared them. But why do you not write a word about yourself? and yet to you corresponding is much easier than to me; for I have been writing to you daily for a whole week already—namely, since my return from northern Scotland (Strachur [FOOTNOTE: A small town, eight miles south of Inveraray, in Argyleshire.])—without getting done. I know, indeed, that you have an invalid in Versailles; for Rozaria [FOOTNOTE: Mdlle. de Rozieres.] wrote to me that you had paid her a visit, and then in great haste had gone to an invalid in Versailles. I hope it is not your grandfather or grandchild, or one of your dear neighbours, the Rochanskis. Here one hears as yet nothing of cholera, but in London it appears already here and there.

With your letter, which I received at Johnstone Castle, and in which you informed me that you had been with Soli [FOOTNOTE: I suppose Solange, Madame Clesinger, George Sand's daughter.] at the Gymnase Theatre, there came at the same time one from Edinburgh, from Prince Alexander Czartoryski, with the news that he and his wife had arrived, and that he would be very glad to see me. Although tired, I at once took the train and found them still in Edinburgh. Princess Marcelline was as kind as she always is to me. The intercourse with them reanimated me, and gave me strength to play in Glasgow, where the whole haute volee had gathered for my concert. The weather was magnificent, and the princely family had even come from Edinburgh with little Marcel, who is growing nicely, and sings already my compositions, yes, and even corrects when he hears someone making mistakes. It was on Wednesday afternoon, at 3 o'clock, and the princely couple did me the kindness to accept along with me an invitation to a dinner at Johnstone Castle (by the way, twelve English miles from Glasgow) after the concert; in this way, then, I passed the whole day with them. Lord and Lady Murray and the old Lord Torphichen (who had come a distance of a hundred miles) drove also thither with us, and the next day all were quite charmed with the amiability of Princess Marcelline. The princely pair returned to Glasgow, whence, after a visit to Loch Tamen, [FOOTNOTE: There is no such loch. Could it possibly be Loch Lomond? Loch Leven seems to me less likely.] they wished to go back at once to London, and thence to the Continent. The Prince spoke of you with sincere kindness. I can very well imagine what your noble soul must suffer when you see what is now going on in Paris. You cannot think how I revived, how lively I became that day in the society of such dear countrymen; but to-day I am again very depressed. O, this mist! Although, from the window at which I write, I have before me the most beautiful view of Stirling Castle—it is the same, as you will remember, which delighted Robert Bruce—and mountains, lochs, a charming park, in one word, the view most celebrated for its beauty in Scotland; I see nothing, except now and then, when the mist gives way to the sun. The owner of this mansion, whose name is Stirling, is the uncle of our Scotch ladies, and the head of the family. I made his acquaintance in London; he is a rich bachelor, and has a very beautiful picture-gallery, which is especially distinguished by works of Murillo and other Spanish masters. He has lately even published a very interesting book on the Spanish school; he has travelled much (visited also the East), and is a very intelligent man. All Englishmen of note who come to Scotland go to him; he has always an open house, so that there are daily on an average about thirty people at dinner with him. In this way one has opportunities of seeing the most different English beauties; lately there was, for instance, for some days a Mrs. Boston here, but she is already gone. As to dukes, earls, and lords, one now sees here more of them than ever, because the Queen has sojourned in Scotland. Yesterday she passed close by us by rail, as she had to be at a certain time in London, and there was such a fog on the sea that she preferred to return from Aberdeen to London by land, and not (as she had come) by boat—to the great regret of the navy, which had prepared various festivities for her. It is said that her consort, Prince Albert, was very much pleased at this, as he becomes always sea-sick on board, while the Queen, like a true ruler of the sea, is not inconvenienced by a voyage. I shall soon have forgotten Polish, speak French like an Englishman, and English like a Scotchman—in short, like Jawurek, jumble together five languages. If I do not write to you a Jeremiad, it is not because you cannot comfort me, but because you are the only one who knows everything; and if I once begin to complain, there will be no end to it, and it will always be in the same key. But it is incorrect when I say: "always in the same key," for things are getting worse with me every day. I feel weaker; I cannot compose, not for want of inclination, but for physical reasons, and because I am every week in a different place. But what shall I do? At least, I shall save something for the winter. Invitations I have in plenty, and cannot even go where I should like, for instance, to the Duchess of Argyll and Lady Belhaven, as the season is already too far advanced and too dangerous for my enfeebled health. I am all the morning unable to do anything, and when I have dressed myself I feel again so fatigued that I must rest. After dinner I must sit two hours with the gentlemen, hear what they say, and see how much they drink. Meanwhile I feel bored to death. I think of something totally different, and then go to the drawing-room, where I require all my strength to revive, for all are anxious to hear me. Afterwards my good Daniel carries me upstairs to my bedroom, undresses me, puts me to bed, leaves the candle burning, and then I am again at liberty to sigh and to dream until morning, to pass the next day just like the preceding one. When I have settled down in some measure, I must continue my travels, for my Scotch ladies do not allow me—to be sure with the best intentions in the world—any rest. They fetch me to introduce me to all their relations; they will at last kill me with their kindness, and I must bear it all out of pure amiability.—

Your

FREDERICK.

Chopin to Gutmann; Calder House, October 16, 1848 (twelve miles from Edinburgh):—

Very dear friend,—What are you doing? How are your people, your country, your art? you are unjustly severe upon me, for you know my infirmity in the matter of letter-writing. I have thought of you much, and on reading the other day that there was a disturbance at Heidelberg, I tried some thirty rough draughts [brouillons] in order to send you a line, the end of them all being to be thrown into the fire. This page will perhaps reach you and find you happy with your good mother. Since I had news from you, I have been in Scotland, in this beautiful country of Walter Scott, with so many memories of Mary Stuart, the two Charleses, &c. I drag myself from one lord to another, from one duke to another. I find everywhere, besides extreme kindness and hospitality without limit, excellent pianos, beautiful pictures, choice libraries; there are also hunts, horses, dogs, interminable dinners, and cellars of which I avail myself less. It is impossible to form an idea of all the elaborate comfort which reigns in the English mansions. The Queen having passed this year some weeks in Scotland, all England followed her, partly out of courtesy, partly because of the impossibility of going to the disturbed Continent. Everything here has become doubly splendid, except the sun, which has done nothing more than usual; moreover, the winter advances, and I do not know yet what will become of me. I am writing to you from Lord Torphichen's. In this mansion, above my apartment, John Knox, the Scotch reformer, dispensed for the first time the Sacrament. Everything here furnishes matter for the imagination—a park with hundred-year-old trees, precipices, walls of the castle in ruins, endless passages with numberless old ancestors—there is even a certain Red-cowl which walks there at midnight. I walk there my incertitude. [II y a meme un certain bonnet rouge, qui s'y promene a minuit. J'y promene mon incertitude.]

Cholera is coming; there is fog and spleen in London, and no president in Paris. It does not matter where I go to cough and suffocate, I shall always love you. Present my respects to your mother, and all my wishes for the happiness of you all. Write me a line to the address: Dr. Lishinsky, [FOOTNOTE: The letter I shall next place before the reader is addressed by Chopin to "Dr. Lishinski." In an Edinburgh medical directory the name appeared as Lyszynski.] 10, Warriston Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland.—Yours, with all my heart,

CHOPIN.

P.S.—I have played in Edinburgh; the nobility of the neighbourhood came to hear me; people say the thing went off well—a little success and money. There were this year in Scotland Lind, Grisi, Alboni, Mario, Salvi—everybody.

From Chopin's letters may be gathered that he arrived once more in London at the end of October or beginning of November.

Chopin to Dr. Lyschinski; London, November 3, 1848:—

I received yesterday your kind words with the letter from Heidelberg. I am as perplexed here as when I was with you, and have the same love in my heart for you as when I was with you. My respects to your wife and your neighbours. May God bless you!

I embrace you cordially. I have seen the Princess [Czartoryska]; they were inquiring about you most kindly.

My present abode is 4, St. James's Place. If anything should come for me, please send it to that address.

3rd November, 1848.

Pray send the enclosed note to Miss Stirling, who, no doubt, is still at Barnton.

[FOOTNOTE: In this case, as when writing to Woyciechowski, Matuszynski, Fontana, Franchomme and Gutmann, Chopin uses in addressing his correspondent, the pronoun of the second person singular. Here I may also mention the curious monogram on his seal: three C's in the form of horns (with mouthpieces and bells) intertwined.]

The following letter shows in what state of mind and body Chopin was at the time.

Chopin to Grzymala; London, October [should be November] 17-18, 1848:—

My dearest friend,—For the last eighteen days, that is, since my arrival in London, I have been ill, and had such a severe cold in my head (with headache, difficult breathing, and all my bad symptoms) that I did not get out of doors at all. The physician visits me daily (a homoeopathist of the name of Mallan, the same whom my Scotch ladies have and who has here a great reputation, and is married to a niece of Lady Gainsborough). He has succeeded in restoring me so far that yesterday I was able to take part in the Polish Concert and Ball; I went, however, at once home, after I had gone through my task. The whole night I could not sleep, as I suffered, besides cough and asthma, from very violent headache. As yet the mist has not been very bad, so that, in order to breathe a little fresh air, I can open the windows of my apartments notwithstanding the keen cold. I live at No. 4, St. James's Street, see almost every day the excellent Szulczewski, Broadwood, Mrs. Erskine, who followed me hither with Mr. Stirling, and especially Prince Alexander [Czartoryski] and his wife.

[FOOTNOTE: Charles Francis Szulczewski, son of Charles Szulczewski, Receiver General for the District of Orlow, born on January 18, 1814, was educated at the Military School at Kalisz, served during the War of 1831 in the Corps of Artillery under General Bem, obtained the Cross of Honour (virtuti militari) for distinguishing himself at Ostrolenka, passed the first years of his refugee life in France, and in 1842 took up his residence in London, where, in 1845, he became Secretary of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland. He was promoted for his services to the rank of Major in the Polish Legion, which was formed in Turkey under the command of Ladislas Zamoyski, and after the treaty of Paris (1856) the English Government appointed him to a post in the War Office. Major Szulczewski, who died on October 18, 1884, was an ardent patriot, highly esteemed not only by his countrymen, but also by all others who came in contact with him, numbering among his friends the late Lord Dudley Stuart and the late Earl of Harrowby.]

Address your letters, please, to Szulczewski. I cannot yet come to Paris, but I am always considering what is to be done to return there. Here in these apartments, which for any healthy man would be good, I cannot remain, although they are beautifully situated and not dear (four and a half guineas a week, inclusive of bed, coals, &c.); they are near Lord Stuart's, [FOOTNOTE: Lord Dudley Cuotts Stuart, a staunch and generous friend of the Poles.] who has just left me. This worthy gentleman came to inquire how I felt after last night's concert. Probably I shall take up my quarters with him, because he has much larger rooms, in which I can breathe more freely. En tout cas—inquire, please, whether there are not somewhere on the Boulevard, in the neighbourhood of the Rue de la Paix or Rue Royale, apartments to be had on the first etage with windows towards the south; or, for aught I care, in the Rue des Mathurin, but not in the Rue Godot or other gloomy, narrow streets; at any rate, there must be included a room for the servant. Perhaps Franck's old quarters, which were above mine, at the excellent Madame Etienne's, in the Square No. 9 (Cite d'Orleans), are unoccupied; for I know from experience that I cannot keep on my old ones during the winter. If there were only on the same story a room for the servant, I should go again and live with Madame Etienne, but I should not like to let my Daniel go away, as, should I at any time wish or be able to return to England, he will be acquainted with everything.

Why I bother you with all this I don't know myself; but I must think of myself, and, therefore, I beg of you, assist me in this. I have never cursed anyone, but now I am so weary of life that I am near cursing Lucrezia! [FOOTNOTE: George Sand. This allusion after what has been said in a previous chapter about her novel Lucrezia Floriani needs no further explanation.] But she suffers too, and suffers more because she grows daily older in wickedness. What a pity about Soli! [FOOTNOTE: I suppose Solange, Madame Clesinger, George Sand's daughter.] Alas! everything is going wrong in this world. Think only that Arago with the eagle on his breast now represents France!!! Louis Blanc attracts here nobody's attention. The deputation of the national guard drove Caussidier out of the Hotel de la Sablonniere (Leicester Square) from the table d'hote with the exclamation: "Vous n'etes pas francais!"

Should you find apartments, let me know at once; but do not give up the old ones till then.—Your

FREDERICK.

The Polish Ball and Concert alluded to in the above letter deserves our attention, for on that occasion Chopin was heard for the last time in public, indeed, his performance there may be truly called the swan's song.

The following is an advertisement which appeared in the DAILY NEWS of November 1, 1848:—

Grand Polish Ball and Concert at Guildhall, under Royal and distinguished patronage, and on a scale of more than usual magnificence, will take place on Thursday, the 16th of November, by permission of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London; particulars of which will be shortly announced to the public.

JAMES R. CARR, HONORARY SECRETARY.

The information given in this advertisement is supplemented in one of November 15:—

The magnificent decorations used on the Lord Mayor's day are, by permission, preserved. The concert will comprise the most eminent vocalists. Tickets (refreshments included), for a lady and gentleman, 21/-; for a gentleman, 15/-; for a lady, 10/6; to be had of, &c.

On the 17th of November the TIMES had, of course, an account of the festivity of the preceding night:—

The patrons and patronesses of this annual or rather perennial demonstration in favour of foreign claims on domestic charity assembled last night at Guildhall much in the same way as they assembled last year and on previous occasions, though certainly not in such numbers, nor in such quality as some years ago. The great hall was illuminated and decorated as at the Lord Mayor's banquet. The appearance was brilliant without being particularly lively.

Then the dancing, Mr. Adams' excellent band, the refreshment rooms, a few noble Lords, the Lord Mayor, and some of the civic authorities (who "diversified the plain misters and mistresses who formed the majority"), the gay costumes of some Highlanders and Spaniards, and Lord Dudley (the great lion of the evening)—all these are mentioned, but there is not a word about Chopin. Of the concert we read only that it "was much the same as on former anniversaries, and at its conclusion many of the company departed." We learn, moreover, that the net profit was estimated at less than on former occasions.

The concert for which Chopin, prompted by his patriotism and persuaded by his friends, lent his assistance, was evidently a subordinate part of the proceedings in which few took any interest. The newspapers either do not notice it at all or but very briefly; in any case the great pianist-composer is ignored. Consequently, very little information is now to be obtained about this matter. Mr. Lindsay Sloper remembered that Chopin played among other things the "Etudes" in A flat and F minor (Op. 25, Nos. 1 & 2). But the best account we have of the concert are some remarks of one present at it which Mr. Hueffer quotes in his essay on Chopin in "Musical Studies":—

The people, hot from dancing, who went into the room where he played, were but little in the humour to pay attention, and anxious to return to their amusement. He was in the last stage of exhaustion, and the affair resulted in disappointment. His playing at such a place was a well-intentioned mistake.

What a sad conclusion to a noble artistic career!

Although Chopin was longing for Paris in November, he was still in London in the following January.

Chopin to Grzymaia; London, Tuesday, January, 1849:—

My dearest friend,—To-day I am again lying almost the whole day, but Thursday I shall leave the to me unbearable London. The night from Thursday to Friday I shall remain at Boulogne, and, I hope, go to bed on Friday night in the Place d'Orleans. To other ailments is now added neuralgia. Please see that the sheets and pillows are quite dry and cause fir-nuts to be bought; Madame Etienne is not to spare anything, so that I may warm myself when I arrive. I have written to Drozewski that he is to provide carpets and curtains. I shall pay the paper- hanger Perrichon at once after my arrival. Tell Pleyel to send me a piano on Thursday; let it be closed and a nosegay of violets be bought, so that there may be a nice fragrance in the salon. I should like to find a little poesy in my rooms and in my bedroom, where I in all probability shall lie down for a long time.

Friday evening, then, I expect to be in Paris; a day longer here, and I shall go mad or die! My Scotch ladies are good, but so tedious that—God have mercy on us! They have so attached themselves to me that I cannot easily get rid of them; only Princess Marcelline [Czartoryska] and her family, and the excellent Szulczewski keep me alive. Have fires lighted in all rooms and the dust removed—perhaps I may yet recover.—Yours ever,

FREDERICK.

Mr. Niedzwiecki told me that he travelled with Chopin, who was accompanied by his servant, from London to Paris.

[FOOTNOTE: Leonard Niedzwiecki, born in the Kingdom of Poland in 1807, joined the National Army in 1830, distinguished himself on several battlefields, came in 1832 as a refugee to England, made there a livelihood by literary work and acted as honorary librarian of the Literary Association of the friends of Poland, left about 1845 London for Paris and became Private Secretary, first to General Count Ladislas Zamoyski, and after the Count's death to the widowed Countess. M. Niedzwiecki, who is also librarian of the Polish Library at Paris, now devotes all his time to historical and philological research.]

The three had a compartment to themselves. During the journey the invalid suffered greatly from frequent attacks of breathlessness. Chopin was delighted when he saw Boulogne. How hateful England and the English were to him is shown by the following anecdote. When they had left Boulogne and Chopin had been for some time looking at the landscape through which they were passing, he said to Mr. Niedzwiecki: "Do you see the cattle in this meadow? Ca a plus d'intelligence que les Anglais." Let us not be wroth at poor Chopin: he was then irritated by his troubles, and always anything but a cosmopolitan.



CHAPTER XXXII.



DETERIORATION OF CHOPIN'S STATE OF HEALTH.—TWO LETTERS.—REMOVES FROM THE SQUARE D'ORLEANS TO THE RUE CHAILLOT.—PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES.—A CURIOUS STORY.—REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS CONNECTED WITH CHOPIN'S STAY IN THE RUE CHAILLOT.—REMOVES TO NO. 12, PLACE VENDOME.—LAST DAYS, AND DEATH.—FUNERAL.—LAST RESTING-PLACE.—MONUMENT AND COMMEMORATION IN 1850.



The physical condition in which we saw Chopin in the preceding chapter was not the outcome of a newly-contracted disease, but only an acuter phase of that old disease from which he had been suffering more or less for at least twelve years, and which in all probability he inherited from his father, who like himself died of a chest and heart complaint. [FOOTNOTE: My authority for this statement is Dr. Lyschinski, who must have got his information either from Chopin himself or his mother. That Chopin's youngest sister, Emilia, died of consumption in early life cannot but be regarded as a significant fact.] Long before Chopin went in search of health to Majorca, ominous symptoms showed themselves; and when he returned from the south, he was only partly restored, not cured.

My attachment [writes George Sand in "Ma Vie"] could work this miracle of making him a little calm and happy, only because God had approved of it by preserving a little of his health. He declined, however, visibly, and I knew no longer what remedies to employ in order to combat the growing irritation of his nerves. The death of his friend Dr. Matuszynski, then that of his own father, [FOOTNOTE: Nicholas Chopin died on May 3, 1844. About Matuszynski's death see page 158.] were to him two terrible blows. The Catholic dogma throws on death horrible terrors. Chopin, instead of dreaming for these pure souls a better world, had only dreadful visions, and I was obliged to pass very many nights in a room adjoining his, always ready to rise a hundred times from my work in order to drive away the spectres of his sleep and wakefulness. The idea of his own death appeared to him accompanied with all the superstitious imaginings of Slavonic poetry. As a Pole he lived under the nightmare of legends. The phantoms called him, clasped him, and, instead of seeing his father and his friend smile at him in the ray of faith, he repelled their fleshless faces from his own and struggled under the grasp of their icy hands.

But a far more terrible blow than the deaths of his friend and his father was his desertion by George Sand, and we may be sure that it aggravated his disease a hundredfold. To be convinced of this we have only to remember his curse on Lucrezia (see the letter to Grzymala of November 17-18, 1848).

Jules Janin, in an obituary notice, says of Chopin that "he lived ten years, ten miraculous years, with a breath ready to fly away" (il a vecu dix ans, dix ans de miracle, d'un souffle pret a s'envoler). Another writer remarks: "In seeing him [Chopin] so puny, thin, and pale, one thought for a. long time that he was dying, and then one got accustomed to the idea that he could live always so." Stephen Heller in chatting to me about Chopin expressed the same idea in different words: "Chopin was often reported to have died, so often, indeed, that people would not believe the news when he was really dead." There was in Chopin for many years, especially since 1837, a constant flux and reflux of life. To repeat another remark of Heller's: "Now he was ill, and then again one saw him walking on the boulevards in a thin coat." A married sister of Gutmann's remembers that Chopin had already, in 1843-4, to be carried upstairs, when he visited her mother, who in that year was staying with her children in Paris; to walk upstairs, even with assistance, would have been impossible to him.

For a long time [writes M. Charles Gavard] Chopin had been, moving about with difficulty, and only went out to have himself carried to a few faithful friends. He visited them by no means in order that they might share his misery, on the contrary, he seemed even to forget his troubles, and at sight of the family life, and in the midst of the demonstrations of love which he called forth from everyone, he found new impulse and new strength to live.

[FOOTNOTE: In a manuscript now before me, containing reminiscences of the last months of Chopin's life. Karasowski, at whose disposal the author placed his manuscript, copies LITERALY, in the twelfth chapter of his Chopin biography, page after page, without the customary quotation marks.]

Edouard Wolff told me that, in the latter part of Chopin's life, he did not leave the carriage when he had any business at Schlesinger's music-shop; a shopman came out to the composer, who kept himself closely wrapped in his blue mantle. The following reminiscence is, like some of the preceding ones, somewhat vague with regard to time. Stephen Heller met Chopin shortly before the latter fell ill. On being asked where he was going, Chopin replied that he was on his way to buy a new carpet, his old one having got worn, and then he complained of his legs beginning to swell. And Stephen Heller saw indeed that there were lumps of swelling. M. Mathias, describing to me his master as he saw him in 1847, wrote: "It was a painful spectacle to see Chopin at that time; he was the picture of exhaustion—the back bent, the head bowed forward—but always amiable and full of distinction." That Chopin was no longer in a condition to compose (he published nothing after October, 1847), and that playing in public was torture to him and an effort beyond his strength, we have already seen. But this was not all the misery; he was also unable to teach. Thus all his sources of income were cut off. From Chopin's pupil Madame Rubio (nee Vera de Kologrivof) I learned that latterly when her master was ill and could not give many lessons, he sent to her several of his pupils, among whom was also Miss Stirling, who then came to him only once a week instead of oftener. But after his return from England Chopin was no longer able to teach at all. [FOOTNOTE: "When languor [son mal de langueur] took hold of him," relates Henri Blaze de Bury in "Etudes et Souvenirs," "Chopin gave his lessons, stretched on a sofa, having within reach a piano of which he made use for demonstration."] This is what Franchomme told me, and he, in the last years especially, was intimately acquainted with Chopin, and knew all about his financial affairs, of which we shall hear more presently.

As we saw from the letter quoted at the end of the last chapter, Chopin took up his quarters in the Square d'Orleans, No. 9. He, however, did not find there the recovery of his health, of which he spoke in the concluding sentences. Indeed, Chopin knew perfectly by that time that the game was lost. Hope showed herself to him now and then, but very dimly and doubtfully. Nothing proves the gravity of his illness and his utter prostration so much as the following letters in which he informs his Titus, the dearest friend of his youth, that he cannot go and meet him in Belgium.

Chopin to Titus Woyciechowski; Paris, August 20, 1849:—

Square d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, No 9.

My dearest friend,—Nothing but my being so ill as I really am could prevent me from leaving Paris and hastening to meet you at Ostend; but I hope that God will permit you to come to me. The doctors do not permit me to travel. I drink Pyrenean waters in my own room. But your presence would do me more good than any kind of medicine.—Yours unto death,

FREDERICK.

Paris, September 12, 1849.

My dear Titus,—I had too little time to see about the permit for your coming here; [FOOTNOTE: As a Russian subject, Woyciechowski required a special permission from the Rusian authorities to visit Paris, which was not readily granted to Poles.] I cannot go after it myself, for the half of my time I lie in bed. But I have asked one of my friends, who has very great influence, to undertake this for me; I shall not hear anything certain, about it till Saturday. I should have liked to go by rail to the frontier, as far as Valenciennes, to see you again; but the doctors do not permit me to leave Paris, because a few days ago I could not get as far as Ville d'Avraye, near Versailles, where I have a goddaughter. For the same reason they do not send me this winter to a warmer climate. It is, then, illness that retains me; were I only tolerably well I should certainly have visited you in Belgium.

Perhaps you may manage to come here. I am not egotistic enough to ask you to come only on my account; for, as I am ill, you would have with me weary hours and disappointments, but, perhaps, also hours of comfort, and of beautiful reminiscences of our youth, and I wish only that our time together may be a time of happiness.—Yours ever,

FREDERICK.

When Chopin wrote the second of the above letters he was staying in a part of Paris more suitable for summer quarters than the Square d'Orleans—namely, in the Rue Chaillot, whither he had removed in the end of August.

The Rue Chaillot [writes M. Charles Gavard] was then a very quiet street, where one thought one's self rather in the province than in the capital. A large court-yard led to Chopin's apartments on the second story and with a view of Paris, which can be seen from the height of Chaillot.

The friends who found these apartments for the invalid composer made him believe that the rent was only 200 francs. But in reality it was 400 francs, and a Russian lady, Countess Obreskoff, [FOOTNOTE: Madame Rubio, differing in this one particular from Franchomme, said that Chopin paid 100 francs and Countess Obreskoff 200.] paid one half of it. When Chopin expressed surprise at the lowness of the rent, he was told that lodgings were cheap in summer.

This last story prompts me to say a few words about Chopin's pecuniary circumstances, and naturally leads me to another story, one more like romance than reality. Chopin was a bad manager, or rather he was no manager at all. He spent inconsiderately, and neglecting to adapt his expenditure to his income, he was again and again under the necessity of adapting his income to his expenditure. Hence those borrowings of money from friends, those higglings with and dunnings of publishers, in short, all those meannesses which were unworthy of so distinguished an artist, and irreconcilable with his character of grand seigneur. Chopin's income was more than sufficient to provide him with all reasonable comforts; but he spent money like a giddy-headed, capricious woman, and unfortunately for him had not a fond father or husband to pay the debts thus incurred. Knowing in what an unsatisfactory state his financial affairs were when he was earning money by teaching and publishing, we can have no difficulty in imagining into what straits he must have been driven by the absolute cessation of work and the consequent cessation of income. The little he had saved in England and Scotland was soon gone, gone unawares; indeed, the discovery of the fact came to him as a surprise. What was to be done? Franchomme, his right hand, and his head too, in business and money matters—and now, of course, more than ever—was at his wits' end. He discussed the disquieting, threatening problem with some friends of Chopin, and through one of them the composer's destitution came to the knowledge of Miss Stirling. She cut the Gordian knot by sending her master 25,000 francs. [FOOTNOTE: M. Charles Gavard says 20,000 francs.] This noble gift, however; did not at once reach the hands of Chopin. When Franchomme, who knew what had been done, visited Chopin a few days afterwards, the invalid lamented as on previous occasions his impecuniosity, and in answer to the questions of his astonished friend stated that he had received nothing. The enquiries which were forthwith set on foot led to the envelope with the precious enclosure being found untouched in the clock of the portiere, who intentionally or unintentionally had omitted to deliver it. The story is told in various ways, the above is the skeleton of apparently solid facts. I will now make the reader acquainted with the hitherto unpublished account of Madame Rubio, who declared solemnly that her version was correct in every detail. Franchomme's version, as given in Madame Audley's book on Chopin, differs in several points from that of Madame Rubio; I shall, therefore, reproduce it for comparison in a foot-note.

One day in 1849 Franchomme came to Madame Rubio, and said that something must be done to get money for Chopin. Madame Rubio thereupon went to Miss Stirling to acquaint her with the state of matters. When Miss Stirling heard of Chopin's want of money, she was amazed, and told her visitor that some time before she had, without the knowledge of anyone, sent Chopin 25,000 francs in a packet which, in order to conceal the sender, she got addressed and sealed in a shop. The ladies made enquiries as to the whereabouts of the money, but without result. A Scotch gentleman, a novelist (Madame Rubio had forgotten the name at the time she told the story, but was sure she would recall it, and no doubt would have done so, had not her sudden death soon after [FOOTNOTE: In the summer of 1880] intervened), proposed to consult the clairvoyant Alexandre. [FOOTNOTE: Madame Rubio always called the clairvoyant thus. See another name farther on.] The latter on being applied to told them that the packet along with a letter had been delivered to the portiere who had it then in her possession, but that he could not say more until he got some of her hair. One evening when the portiere was bathing Chopin's feet, he—who had in the meantime been communicated with—talked to her about her hair and asked her to let him cut off one lock. She allowed him to do so, and thus Alexandre was enabled to say that the money was in the clock in the portiere's room. Having got this information, they went to the woman and asked her for the packet. She turned pale, and, drawing it out of the clock, said that at the time she forgot to give it to Chopin, and when she remembered it afterwards was afraid to do so. The packet of notes was unopened. Madame Rubio supposed that the portiere thought Chopin would soon die and that then she might keep the contents of the parcel.