This was his townsman and friend, Stephen von Breuning, who had, like him, removed to Vienna, and had continued there, throughout life, the intimacy of earlier years; and, surviving him, was named his executor. He was a man of good talents, a member of a learned profession, (Hofrath,) an amateur musician of considerable skill, and had proved himself the warm friend and judicious counsellor of the great composer on many trying occasions. From him, therefore, a satisfactory biography might have proceeded; but this hope was unfortunately defeated, as Von Breuning survived his friend only two months. Rochlitz, the editor of the Leipzig Musical Journal, it is said, was then solicited to undertake the task, and was offered the use of the papers left in the executor's hands; but declined it on the ground of ill health, which compelled him to abstain from all new labours of composition at the period in question. We have alluded to the casual notices which have been published on the subject of Beethoven. The most important of these appeared at Coblentz in 1838, from the joint contributions of Dr Wegeler, and Ferdinand Ries the favourite and most distinguished pupil of the composer. Dr Wegeler, rector of the university at Bonn, and the husband of Von Breuning's sister, had been the companion of Beethoven's early years, and remained afterwards in friendly correspondence with him; and the records he has collected, although scanty, have the merit of being cordial and authentic. To these were added the reminiscences of Ries, referring principally, of course, to the period of his own tuition at Vienna. They are fragmentary, and chiefly occupied with the subjects in which his private interests were engaged; but appear, on the whole, to be faithful and friendly, with as much insight as can be expected from the observation of a mere youth, such as Ries was at this period. He is accused by Beethoven's professed biographer, Schindler, (whom we shall presently have to mention,) of exhibiting his master in an unfavourable light; but the anecdotes which he relates, although some of them portray singularities of character certainly to be lamented, do not want general confirmation from the very statements which Schindler himself has published. These, with the exception of some foolish and false articles in biographical and musical dictionaries, and the fragmentary essays, of little authentic value, added by the Ritter von Seyfried to an edition of Beethoven's Studies, were all that had appeared on the subject, until lately, when a complete Biography was announced from the pen of Anton Schindler, a professor of music, who had been a pupil and companion of Beethoven's during the latter years of his life. This circumstance gave him many advantages; and in the interval which had passed since the death of the composer, there had been sufficient opportunity to collect whatever could be gathered from other quarters to complete the work; while the lateness of its appearance seemed to remove many obstacles to the full declaration of circumstances in which other persons, now also departed from the scene, had been con cerned. In his preface, the author professes to have availed himself of all these favouring circumstances; but it must be confessed that the result attained is far from satisfactory. The narrative is hasty and meagre, leaving intervals in the most important stages of the composer's career almost wholly blank; there is a want of plain speaking in the account of his dealings with others, and of the treatment which he met with at their hands, which it is difficult to excuse; and of those personal details, so precious in the biographies of eminent men, the notice is scanty and colourless. That the biographer was unable to comprehend the outlines of so colossal a subject, is not certainly a matter of censure, however it may be to be lamented; but we cannot forgive the want of diligence, or observation, which has left but few records of the daily life and conversation, the fragments of which are so interesting. How often, on such occasions, must the reader regret the want of an observer at once curious, minute, and affectionate, like our own Boswell,-than whom no contributor to the store of really living knowledge and insight has been less justly appreciated. Yet amidst all the disadvantages of these imperfect and feeble surveys, it is impossible to mistake the presence of a figure more vast and imposing than is often presented to the eye of the observer; or to overlook the fact, that there are here" etiam disjecta membra poeta." Through the obscurity and distance of the picture, an appearance, austere, melancholy, and commanding, rises, like the vision of a second Prometheus, stricken with lightning from above, and fettered to the unyielding rock, but still invincible in hope and endurance, and irradiated with the light gathered from heaven, and imparted by his hands to the sons of mankind! It is the purpose of the present essay to offer, from the sources above indicated, a sketch of the career of this extraordinary man; and, as the works in question (although a translation of Schindler's Biography has lately been announced) are not generally known to English readers, the attempt will perhaps be received with indulgence. We cannot suppose that any apology is needed for the subject. In the case of an ordinary musician, indeed, it might appear unlikely to interest any but professional readers; but Beethoven's name belongs to that select company of masters, whose stature raises them above the limits whereby the mere technicalities of the various arts are distinguished; and exhibits them as the chosen of the earth, to the general reverence of mankind. It is known in all lands to which the knowledge of civilisation has penetrated; and is already recorded, a xa es as, in the same register which bears the name of a Shakspeare, a Leibnitz, or a Michel Angelo. These are the lights of our species; their actions and lives are significant and instructive to all, whatsoever may have been the particular form in which the genius bestowed upon them was manifested. We shall not here attempt to introduce any critical description of Beethoven's musical compositions. It is sufficient for our purpose that they have, by universal consent, taken their place | yet accomplished, and the feeling that his fatal amongst the masterpieces of the art the only misfortune rendered their thorough exercise imposquestion respecting them being, whether they are, sible. His eyes were closed by a stranger's hand; or are not, of their several kinds, absolutely the and it was reserved for a society of English musimost perfect and genial compositions hitherto pro- cians to minister to the last necessities of the dying duced. This is a question which will always re- composer whom Germany now numbers amongst main open to dispute, so long as one star differs her greatest men. When to this it is added, that from another in brightness, but does not affect amidst such accumulated distresses his courage their place in the firmament of the highest art, never sank, and his genius continued to the latest which is, in the meanwhile, illustrious and un- moment as clear and energetic as in his better days; changeable. Nor is it a matter of regret to us that that he never was tempted to degrade his art for any technical dissertation is here unnecessary. Of purposes of gain, but strove to the last with unall hopeless endeavours there is none more fruitless failing enthusiasm to realize the ideal of beauty than the attempt to suggest, by words, an idea of and poetical truth, which he disinterestedly worthe peculiar characteristics of the musician's excel-shipped for their own sakes, and loved, as the one lence,-none which is more liable to degenerate cherished light of his troubled life,—we have surely into mere rhapsody, or to lose itself amidst the dry here the elements of a story no less dignified and bones of a pedantic display. For those who have tragical than any which has been told in our times. heard and felt the great works of this master-quis And if we learn that, amidst so much endurance enim non novit Alexin?—the attempt would be and strenuous endeavour there were asperities and superfluous; and to such as have yet to know sallies of temper which those around him were them (if they have ears to hear, and minds to un- made to feel, it is rather a matter of wonder that, derstand,) we would only say, "Go and learn for in this respect only did he appear to yield to the yourselves." The spirit which animates the crea- many buffetings which his evil fortune had doomtions of the musical artist cannot, by any processed him to bear. We shall, therefore, proceed to of conjuration, be drawn into the circle traced by the pen of the writer. Were it permitted, in the partial view which is all that this life exhibits of human destiny, to question the mysterious decisions of Providence, the history before us might seem especially fitted to suggest matter of wonder and despondency. A believer in the old faith of astrology must have decided that some evil star was in the ascendant at the birth of Beethoven. With strong affections, generous and elevated feelings, modest and temperate in his wishes, and singularly blameless and pure in all moral relations, he was, nevertheless, throughout life in no respect to be called fortunate, save only in the abundant and rare gift of his singular genius, which, assuredly, must have been a compensation for many afflictions. But even this, during the latter half of his life, was embittered to him by the deafness which gradually excluded him from all social enjoyment, and at last made him unable to feel, except in imagination, the effect of his own sublime compositions, many of which he never heard executed. His childhood was saddened by the strictness of a dissipated and selfish father; his youth was a period of hard labour and many disappointments; in manhood he was beset by the sordid and unfeeling interference of his two selfish brothers, who plundered his moderate earnings, and estranged him from his friends. His adopted child, the orphan son of one of these brothers, repaid sacrifices, and a generous kindness almost more than paternal, by shameful misconduct and ingratitude. The fruits of his genius, which delighted the world and enriched others, afforded him little beyond a scanty maintenance; and the infirmity which impaired, and at last destroyed his hearing, attended him to the grave-a melancholy and insulated being, after a long torment of twenty years, during which he was condemned to chafe, like a lion in a cage, with the consciousness of powers to surpass all that he had trace the outline of his career with the consideration and sympathy due to one who gave so much to the world, and who received from it, in return, little beyond its afflictions—a bare existence, and a solitary grave! How it fares with the history of older worthies, we may judge by the readiness with which fables are invented and scattered abroad, even when the subject belongs to our own times. M. M. Fayette and Choron declare, (and other musical and biographical dictionaries have repeated after them,) that Beethoven was a natural son of Frederick William the Second-a monarch who never saw Bonn until long after the mother had given birth to this child, having herself never left the town for a day during the whole of her married life. A Dutchman, of the name of Marsdyk, claims him as a countryman, on the strength of an absurd tale of his birth having happened at Zutphen, in an inn frequented by wayfaring musicians, to which class the story presumes his parents to have belonged. In truth, however, Ludwig van Beethoven (whose family, as the name implies, came originally from Holland, although for three generations settled on the Rhine) was born at Bonn, on the 17th December, 1770. His father and grandfather were both musicians, and in the service of the Electors of Cologne: the latter as a bass-singer and conductor, and the father, Johann van Beethoven, tenorist in the Prince's chapel. His mother is described as "a gentle and pious being ;" and he was wont to speak affectionately of "the patience with which she treated his stubbornness." The grandfather was a composer of some skill, and highly reputable in conduct: "a little vigorous man, with amazingly bright eyes;" and although he died three years after Ludwig's birth, he was always remembered kindly by Beethoven. Not so the father, Johann van Beethoven, who was dissolute in his habits, and treated his son with great harshness,-compelling him to labour unremittingly at the piano-forte; not, as it appears, from any regard for the child's talent, but in order that he might soon become able, by his earnings, to contribute to the support of the household, impoverished by the father's loose and idle life. Ludwig had two brothers, both younger than himself-Carl and Johann, of whom mention will be made hereafter. Such education as a free school in those days afforded, “reading, writing, and some little Latin," was granted to the child for a short time only for his cares were destined to begin early; and, as music offered the only prospect of a maintenance, he was allowed to study little else. We find him, at a very early age, already giving musical lessons in the house of the Von Breuning's-a circumstance to which all the happiness he enjoyed, while he resided at home, was owing. Hither he fled from the miseries and severity of his own dwelling; the family, which was culti vated and highly respectable, became attached to the boy; his pupils grew into companions, and the mother, a widow, treated him like a parent, and alternately encouraged and controlled him, as the waywardness of his temper exhibited itself in despondency or recklessness. We find many traces of this motherly kindness, which must have been invaluable to the neglected boy. Wegeler tells us That he had, from his earliest years, an excessive repugnance to giving lessons in music. Madame von Breuning would sometimes urge him to go to the house of the Austrian Emissary, Count von Westphal, and continue his lessons there. Thus counselled and observed, he would set out “ut ixiguæ mentis asellus,” but many a time turned away at the very door, and running back to her, would promise to give a double lesson on the following day, protesting that now he could not bring himself to it. Nothing but care for his mother would have induced him to go on teaching-certainly not his own indigent condition. The notices of his boyhood are scanty; but traits like the preceding, and others scattered here and there, indicate an early development of the character which belonged to him through life. The interest he excited in others, and the control exercised by his few friends, prove how soon he began to display a genius which attracted, and a waywardness which required their care. It is hard to say how much of the latter was due to the wretchedness of his home: We are inclined to believe, that the inequalities of disposition which beget, in after life, a resistance to social constraint, and provoke the hostility of the orderly and commonplace, are, in most cases, the fruit of some misfortune in the early history of the subject, and spring from a source of bitterness in childhood. In music, at all events, Ludwig made rapid progress. His first instructor, indeed the only one from whom he can be said to have learned any thing on the piano-forte, was an ingenious man of the name of Pfeiffer. The organ he was taught to manage by Van der Eder, the court organist; and the elder Ries, a musician of great excellence, the father of Ferdinand Ries, who became afterwards Beethoven's most distinguished pupil, gave him instruction on the violin, an instrument on which, however, he never was very proficient. At a later period of his career, at Vienna, he learned composition under the celebrated Albrechtsberger, after having frequented, without any benefit, the tuition of Haydn. Whatever else he may have acquired by observation and self-discipline, the above appear to be the only names which can be properly cited as his teachers; and with none of these were his studies of long duration. Through the influence of his excellent friends, the Von Breunings, (to whom, indeed, he owed the most of his early culture in every respect,) he obtained the assistance of Count von Waldstein, a liberal patron of the arts; by whose means we find him in 1785—when barely fifteen years of age-nominated, by the Elector Max Franz,* as supernumerary organist in his chapel-an office honourable for so young a musician, but affording only a scanty emolument. The Count von Waldstein was, indeed, his kindest, as well as his earliest patron. To him he owed the means of support while advancing in his profession, and subsequently his removal, from the narrow cares of his father's house, to Vienna. Perhaps, without this early and appreciating help, the genius of the youth, deprived of access to higher models of his art, and bowed down by ignorant drudgery, might have wasted itself in the obscurity of his native town, and given no audible sign. In this new situation, the youth took early occasion to display his talent, although in a manner sufficiently whimsical and characteristic : It is usual, in Catholic choirs, to sing, during Passionweek, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. These consist, as every one knows, of short passages of four to six lines, which it was customary to chant in a kind of plain song, yet with a certain observance of rhythm. The chant consisted of four successive notes, on one of which the singer was to pause, while the accompanist (the organ being disused during Passion-week) executed a passage or voluntary on the harpsichord. This service falling one day to Beethoven, he asked the singer Heller, who prided himself greatly on his science, if he might try to put him out? which he undertook so to do, that the singer should neither be able to detect him, nor to recover himself when once led astray. The challenge was accepted; and at a suitable place, by a cunning deviation from the proper key, still continuing to strike the true key-note, he completely puzzled the singer; who, after in vain trying to recover the key, was forced at last to come to a full stop, amidst the mirth of the bystanders in the choir. Heller was greatly incensed, and made a formal complaint to the elector; who reproved his young organist with good humour, and forbade him to execute any more strokes of genius of this kind. We see that already, in this wilful eccentric fashion, the genius was beginning to make itself apparent. He also began to compose; but his notions both of the theory and practice of the art were naturally confined. Some variations, which he had written on a theme of Righini's, gave rise to a remarkable instance of his rapid apprehension. An excur He had as yet heard no eminent piano-forte player; he had no idea of refined expression in the use of his instrument-his style was rough and harsh. sion with the orchestra of the elector to Archaffenberg, gave him an opportunity of hearing Sterkel, a celebrated * Brother of the Emperor Joseph II, performer of the time. His style was very fluent and delicate, and, as Father Ries described it, a little womanish. Beethoven stood at his side, listening with the keenest attention. Beethoven was then asked to play, which he declined, until Sterkel intimated some doubt whether the composer of the variations abovenamed could himself execute them readily. Hereupon Beethoven sate down, and played not only these (as far as he could remember them, Sterkel having mislaid his copy,) but added a number of others, fully as difficult; and, what amazed the bystanders, exactly in the same agrecable manner which he had just heard from Sterkel for the first time. This was a remarkable proof of his facility in acquiring new impressions. He was still residing at Bonn when his mother died, in 1787; thus breaking the only tie which made home dear to him. At this period the pressure of extreme poverty was added to his distress; and he was thankful to receive, and never afterwards forgot the kind assistance of Father Ries, who helped him to bear the expenses of his mother's burial. When Ferdinand Ries was sent to him at Vienna, thirteen years afterwards, He was much busied with the completion of his Oratorio, The Mount of Olives, which was on the point of being brought out for his benefit in a grand concert. He read the letter of introduction, and said, "At this moment I cannot answer your father, but write you to him, and say that I have not forgotten how it was when my mother died: that will content him." The care he bestowed on his friend's son, hateful as the task of instruction was to him, proved how warmly this service was remembered. He was wont to revert to his years at Bonn as the happiest period of his existence, poor and laborious as they were, and troubled by the dissipation and rough usage of his father. A melancholy life, truly, in which these were the most tranquil moments! ageously, caring little for grammatical rules. In this state he began to study with Haydn; the old master seemed to be always satisfied with his pupil, and let him do just as he liked, but the scholar was far from being equally well satisfied with his teacher; and thus it fell out. There was an old composer named Schenck, a friend of Beethoven's, a modest man and a profound musician. One day meeting Beethoven as he came with his bundle of music from Haydn's lessons, he cast his eye over the exercises, and detected many faults which Hadyn had suffered to pass unnoticed, although he had professed to correct the composition. This led to more examination, and to the discovery of similar oversights in all his former exercises; which aroused the suspicion of the pupil. In fact, it is difficult to account, in a satisfactory manner, for this neglect on Haydn's part. The lessons were soon after interrupted by Haydn's journey to England; nor were they resumed on his return. Beethoven was wont to say that he had learned nothing from him. After this he studied composition under the celebrated Albrechtsberger, and soon acquired enough of the science to need no further assistance. It was, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance that he was not early subjected to rigorous scientific training; and he appears to have at all times maintained a certain independence of strict technical rules, which, in one of less original genius, might have been fatal, but was with him only a means to the production of new and daring beauties, and graces the grand Titanic fashion in which, at a later pe"beyond the reach of art." It is amusing to note ments of harmony. Ferdinand Ries, when walkriod, he asserted this royal privilege over the cleing with him one day,— As he Spoke of two consecutive fifths, in his violin quartett in C minor, which have a striking and beautiful effect. If not for his own happiness, however, it was at and maintained that they were not in the score. Beethoven did not seem to have been aware of these, least fortunate for the world, that he was enabled, always had music paper with him, I asked for a sheet, in 1786 and 1787, to visit Vienna, then the focus and wrote out the passage with all the four parts. As of all that was most excellent in German art; and, who then has forbidden the use of them?" soon as he saw that I was right, he said, "Well! and afterwards, in 1792, obtained from the elector knew in what manner to answer such a question, he reAs I hardly leave of absence, and a small pension, for a per-peated it once or twice; until at last I replied, in great manent study of some years there, under Haydn. Mozart had died the year previously, but in 1786 he had already prophesied, on hearing Beethoven improvise on a theme before him, "This is a youth who will make the world hear of him before long." At no time was the general tone of musical cultivation, in Vienna, higher or more enthusiastic; and the youth had barely cast an eye on the manifold riches of art which it offered on all hands, when "he vowed to himself, 'Here will I abide, nor again return to Bonn, even were the elector to withdraw his support, and leave me penniless!"" From this period the progress of the young musician, from the condition of a student to the full development of his powers, and to entire selfdependence as a great and original artist, was rapid and decided. The immediate object of his removal to Vienna, which was to benefit by the instructions of Haydn, appears, however, to have failed, according to Schindler's account. Beethoven came to Vienna wholly ignorant of the science of counterpoint, and knowing but little even of thorough-bass. With an active imagination, a quick ear, and a Pegasus ever willing, he wrote on cour astonishment, "Why, they are prohibited by one of the first elementary rules!" Again he repeated the question-and when I cited "Marpurg, Kirnberger, Fuchs, all the theorists!"-his answer was, "Then I allow them!" Yoel Rey! In Vienna the young artist found himself transported, as it were, into a new world. On every side his attention was engaged, and his ambition excited by the masterpieces of great composers; and the society to which his distinguished talent soon introduced him, encouraged him to exercise, in every way, the powers of which he was now fully conscious. Amongst those whose notice urged him onwards, the most distinguished of his patrons was the celebrated Prince Lichnowsky, Mozart's pupil; in whose house he became domesticated, and who fully appreciated, and fostered with a truly noble liberality, his opening talents. From him Beethoven received a pension sufficient for his support, which was to be continued until he should obtain some settled appointment. And this opportune assistance, and the social advantages afforded him by the kindness of the prince and his consort, could not fail to produce the happiest effects in the development of his character and genius. During the first ten or twelve years of his residence in Vienna, it was in this house that all Beethoven's compositions were first performed; the celebrated quartett party,* for which most of his inimitable works of this class were written (which was afterwards known by the name of the Rasumowsky quartett, and, under his direction, established a new era in the school of instrumental performance,) was, during this period, in the service of the prince; and his associates were such as combined with thorough practical knowledge of the art, that refined feeling of its highest beauties which alone can raise it from a mere mechanical display, to the sphere of an intellectual pursuit. The influence of such advantages on a mind like Beethoven's, ardent, imaginative, and full of the purest spirit of poetry, may be conceived;—and their fruits appeared in the compositions which he produced in almost breathless succession, each surpassing the other in novelty and original beauties. His name soon became known as a composer throughout Germany; and, although the boldness of his invention, and the striking flights of imagination which distinguished his works were, at first, to many a theme of wonder and reproach,—the lovers of the art (even those who worshipped most tenaciously the established models) began to discover that another genius had appeared, which promised to equal, if not to eclipse, its greatest predecessors. Still, amidst the elegance and refinement of the circles in which he now moved, with the applause and admiration that were willingly paid to his admitted talents, he was unable to subdue the robust independence of his nature, or to adapt himself to the graceful conventions which regulate polished society. An impatience of restraint, and the preoccupation of a mind wholly absorbed in his art, disqualified him for the study of its observances; and the vehemence that characterized his genius, was displayed no less in his speech and temper, than in the haughty assertion of a rank which he claimed in right of his spiritual nobility. A temperament of this force and ruggedness could not fail to jar with the elements of courtly life; and there were not wanting many, envious of his rapid distinction, who were ready to aggravate the confusion thus created. The appearance of a being like Beethoven in such scenes, suggests the image of a sinewy Hercules surrounded by the silken inmates of Omphale's palace; disturbing, by his abrupt motions, the harmony of the train, and half in impatience, and half carelessly, hurting the hands that cover his uncouthness with the decorations of the court. The contrast of elements so dissimilar naturally became more prominent, as increasing strength increased his self-reliance; and it gave rise to social embarrassments, which tended to estrange him from many of his admirers, and increased his natural longing for solitude, and impatience of the control of a crowd. That, under such circumstances, the gainful exercise of his profession by no means kept pace with his reputation, will readily be imagined: he remained poor, with little prospect beyond a precarious subsistence, in a position which, to others more worldly wise, would have produced a settled competence. To these causes of restlessness and discontent were added others, the source of which lay far deeper. With a heart gushing with tenderness underneath its rugged covering, and all its sensibilities preserved by an exceeding purity of life, Beethoven, the object of attention in many brilliant circles, could not fail to be continually in love, and "mostly with noble and otherwise distinguished ladies." That such attachments could not be happy, we need hardly say; and, although they tended, by estranging him still more thoroughly from any thing low or worthless, to foster the natural aspirations of his mind for the ideally elevated and beautiful, still they perpetually troubled his repose by tempting visions and longings for happiness, which could never be reached. Many of these fair tormentors have been named in the original editions of his works: not a few of the dedications record his devotion to the idol of the day. The Countess Maria von Erdödy is known to have been far from insensible to the passion she excited; and a still deeper and longer attachment existed between the composer and a Countess Giulietta di Guicciardi, the person to whom, apparently, some very fond and melancholy letters, preserved by Schindler, were addressed. At a later period, it appears that, for once, he was enamoured of a young lady in his own rank: the dislike with which he was known to have long regarded the composer Hummel, being, in part, ascribed to the fact, “that both, at one time, were in love with the same maiden ; but Hummel was, and continued to be, the favoured one, as he had an appointment, and had not, moreover, the misfortune of being hard of hearing." We cannot imagine that the greater composer lost much by the neglect of one who could thus be decided; but it is to be deeply regretted that, from one cause or another, he was condemned to be for ever a stranger to the household love and care of a wife. To the want of such a kind and watchful influence, many of his later eccentricities, and all the blank desolation of the concluding portion of his life, may certainly be ascribed. But there was yet another and more fatal enemy to his peace and success as an artist, which was not slow in making its appearance. So early as 1800, at the age of thirty, we find him confiding to his friend Wegeler the approach of a calamity, which he carefully concealed from others, and would fain have hidden from himself. After describing the prospects of employment and distinction in his profession, which then seemed to be opening before him, he writes:-"Yet that envious demon, ill health, has thrown a terrible check in my way: my hearing, to-wit, for the last three years, has been continually growing worse;"-and he goes on to describe the means he had already |