Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/175

BEETHOVEN 319 said : " ' The Seasons ' gave me the finishing stroke." The bombardment of Vienna by the French in 1809 greatly disturbed the poor old man. He still re- tained some of his old humor, and during the thunder of the cannons called out to his servants : " Children, don't be frightened ; no harm can happen to you while Haydn is by !" He was now no longer able to compose, and to his last unfinished quartette he added a few bars of " Der Greis," as a conclusion : " Hin ist alle meine Kraft : Alt unci schwach bin ich. — Joseph Haydn." " Gone is all my strength : old and weak am I." And these lines he caused to be engraved, and sent on a card to the friends who visited him. The end was in- deed now near. On May 26, 1809, he had his servants gathered round him for the last adieus ; then, by his desire, he was carried to the piano, where he played three times over the " Emperor's Hymn," composed by him. Then he was taken to his bed, where five days afterward he died. BEETHOVEN By C. E. Bourne (1770-1827) I n one of his letters to Frau von Streicher, at Baden, Beethoven writes : " When you visit the ancient ruins, do not fofget that Beethoven has often lingered there ; when you stray through the silent pine-forests, do not forget that Beethoven often wrote poetry there, or, as it is termed, com- posed." He was always fond of claiming the title " Ton-dichter, poet in music ; " and surely of all the great geniuses who have walked the earth, to none can the glorious name of " poet " more truly be given than to Ludwig von Beethoven. He was born at Bonn, on December 17, 1770. His father, Johann von Beethoven, was a tenor singer in the Electoral Chapel of the Archbishop of Cologne, at Bonn, and his mother, Maria Mag-, dalena, was a daughter of the head cook at the castle of Ehrenbreitstein. The Beethoven family originally came from Louvain, in Belgium ; but the composer's grandfather had settled in Bonn, first as a singer, and afterward as Capellmeister to the court. Musicians were not held of much account in those days, and the