office that has been offered to me? "Stung to the quick by this repulse, Ries forced him to an explanation, when he owned that he had supposed his pupil to be trying against him for the engagement, and that his conduct was in resentment of the fancied opposition; but being now convinced that his supposition was false, he exerted himself with far more energy to obtain the post for Ries than he had done to secure it for himself. The exertion was, however, to no effect, for during the delay the appointment had been given to Blangini. In 1810 the Mass in C was brought out, its first performance being in the chapel of Prince Esterhazy, of which Hummel was master; and it was from the misinterpretation of a look of that distinguished musician on this occasion that the susceptible Beethoven assumed an offence which separated the two for many years. Allusion has been made to the freedom of the composer's religious sentiment, recurrence to which is not untimely in reference to this remarkable ecclesiastical work—remarkable for the poetical conception of the text it embodies—equally remarkable for the infinite beauty of the technical means by which this is rendered. His life-long habits had fully familiarized him with everything that was conventional in the subject; but the impersonal aspect in which his personal feelings led him to regard it, induced the new and profound readings, which, with all their ideality, and with all their impressiveness, might scarcely have proceeded from an entirely orthodox thinker. What has been ventured in criticism upon Beethoven's fugal writing, applies more pertinently to nothing than to the examples in this composition, which are the isolated passages throughout the work that admit a question of their consummate beauty. In this year, Bettina von Arnim introduced herself to Beethoven, who, always yearning for companionship with the other sex, was enraptured to find in this celebrated lady one with whom he could converse upon the subject of his art, and thus unfold his deepest meditations. Her description of him to Göethe is perhaps an idealism; but if it divests the artist of his mere humanities, it presents, the more clearly for this, that spiritual nature, the working of which in his music confirms her portraiture. In his mere humanities, however, Beethoven was not an ordinary being, and whoever denies a licence to his eccentricities on the grounds of his greatness, cannot but concede it on the score of his infirmity. Certain it is, that when he went his daily walk round the city, through all weathers, and in all seasons, at the extreme of speed, fulfilling in his wild appearance all that can be imagined of a state of inspiration, the people knew him, and the lowest of them stood aside in reverence of a greatness they appreciated, though they might not understand. This lady was the medium of his first communication with Göethe, for whose calling as a poet, and for himself, as its most worthy representative, he had the highest veneration. It was almost as a tribute to the greatness of the author, and certainly as an acknowledgment of the greatness of the play, that he now wrote the music for Egmont, in which the world received a new and one of the greatest proofs of the abstract power of musical expression. Whatever spiritual affinity there may have been between the musician and the poet, there was no personal congeniality; and thus, though they became acquainted, they did not, as they could not, become friends. In 1812 Beethoven wrote music for Kotzebue's masque, the Ruins of Athens, to inaugurate a new theatre in Pesth; but how much besides the overture of this very unequal work belongs to the present occasion, how much to that of its reproduction with a new text in October, 1822, seems to be unknown. King Stephen, a work of the same class may, from the nature of its subject, and the style of its music (excepting always the march, the duet, and the dervise chorus of the former piece), perhaps be attributed to the same date. Mälzel, the inventor of the metronome, who had a scientific knowledge of mechanics, and who was an intimate friend of Beethoven, attempted the construction of an instrument that should assist his hearing. No price would have been too great for the accomplishment of such a service, which would restore the artist socially to the world, and open to him anew the external effects of music; and the sufferer deemed it but small compensation to compose a piece for the display of an extensive barrel organ of the mechanist's invention, and he wrote accordingly the "Battle Symphony;" the idea of the work, the manner in which it was to be carried out, and even the means to be employed, down to the minutest detail, were suggested by Mälzel; and with this account of its purpose and its origin, all that is unaccountable in the emanation of such a production from Beethoven is explained. Mälzel afterwards persuaded him to adapt it for the orchestra; and in this shape it was first performed at a concert given in December, 1813, for the benefit of the Austrian soldiers who had been wounded at the battle of Hanau, in which all the most distinguished musicians of the time, regardless of professional precedence co-operated. The instrument from which Beethoven expected the revival of his happiness, proved a failure; but its constructor still esteemed himself the proprietor of the "Battle Symphony," and obtaining, since the author refused him one, a surreptitious and imperfect copy of the score, had the work performed in different places for his own emolument. Beethoven was not more disgusted at this nefarious proceeding than at the neglect, by our Prince Regent, of the same composition, of which, though it was dedicated to him, though a copy was sent him, and though the author used every means to urge him on the subject, he never made any acknowledgment. At the same benevolent concert in which the "Battle Symphony" was first performed, was also produced a work which, if less attractive for the moment, was far more important to the art and to the reputation of the author. This was the Symphony in A, which, with its wild romance, its passionate yearning, its extravagant gaiety, and all its novelties of means and purpose, may be regarded as one of the first products of that stage in the development of Beethoven's genius, classed by critics as his third style, having ample affinity with what had preceded it, to prove it to be the continuation of a course, and not a tangent into a strange direction, yet having sufficient peculiarity of its own, to show that this course had opened upon scenes hitherto unexplored; in like manner the same chain of connection may be traced, linking all the stations of progress through which his genius passed. On the occasion of the meeting of the allied sovereigns at the Congress of Vienna in 1814, he was engaged to write the cantata "Der Glorreiche Augenblick," in honour of the event (some time after published with a different text, and known in England as "The Praise of Harmony"), an inferior work, indeed, for its author, but containing many points of interest. Besides a large pecuniary payment, he received for this work the citizenship of Vienna; and, being thus brought before the assembled royalty of Europe as the brightest ornament of the nation, he became the subject of such homage as has perhaps never been offered to an artist. With all his republicanism, he was deeply touched by the honours now heaped upon him, to which, in later years, he never alluded without emotion. His political creed was in the supremacy of mind over birth, and he was not a little proud to receive this indirect acknowledgment of his axiom.
In 1815 Mr. Neate, the pianist, on behalf of the Philharmonic Society of London, obtained from Beethoven, three unpublished overtures, paying him seventy-five guineas for the right of performance until they should be printed. These were the "King Stephen," the "Ruins of Athens," and the "Op. 115." And many will not marvel, that the Philharmonic Society, with an equal jealousy for the composer's reputation and its own, would not produce them in public. The censorship of this institution has perhaps not always been so judiciously exercised. The author's indiscrimination as to the relative merits of his own works, is shown in the mortification he evinced at the non-performance of these overtures; another instance of which, is his soreness at the prince's neglect of his "Battle Symphony;" for he defended these compositions with as much earnestness, and spoke of their being overlooked with as much concern, as though he would have been contented to stake his reputation upon them. Not to adduce his dislike in later years of all his early productions, the offence he took at a publisher's protest against the triviality of the bagatelles he wrote in the intervals of the composition of his second Mass, may be named as another example of this incapacity for self-judgment. Mr. Neate, with a true reverence for the master, and a sincere desire to advance his reputation and further his interest, undertook to negotiate the sale and publication in England of some of his larger chamber works; but, as is little to be wondered, failed to make a market for them here; and Beethoven, with the injustice into which his suspicious nature continually led him, ascribed the failure of the agency as a wilful fault to his zealous agent. The death of his brother Carl in November, 1815, was an event of the most serious consequence to the rest of his life. Carl left a son of about eight years old, over whom he, by will, appointed Beethoven guardian. Beethoven had, from time to time, advanced large sums for his
