Chapter I: Preface

What are you to do when you are sent away by your doctor for three or four weeks of perfect rest? You are made to promise that you will lie perfectly fallow, take no books and allow no proofsheets to reach you. A very eminent German professor, the late Dr. Neander, the famous Church historian, solved the difficulty in his own way. He had faithfully promised his physician that he would take no books with him to Karlsbad, but had at last, as a great favour, obtained permission to take at least one work with him on his journey. On the morning of his departure the doctor wished to say good-bye to his patient, and calling at his door saw a cart laden with heavy folios. “But, dear professor,” he said, with considerable surprise and displeasure, “you had promised me to take no books with you.” “Yes, doctor,” the professor replied, “but you allowed me one work, so I thought I might take the Fathers with me to Karlsbad.” I might have done the same, if I had taken the “Rig Veda” only, or the Sacred Books of the East with me, but my conscience would not allow it, so that I found myself in small lodgings at an English watering place with nothing to do all day long but to answer a number of accumulated letters and to read _The Times_, which always follows me. What was I to do? Doctors ought to know that to a man accustomed to work enforced rest is quite as irritating and depressing as _travaux forcés_. In self-defence I at last hit on a very simple expedient. I began to write what could be written without a single book, and taking paper, pen and ink—these I had never forsworn—I jotted down some recollections of former years. The fancy took me, and I said with Goethe:—

Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten—

and after a day or two I was so absorbed in my work, if work it could be called, that I said again with Goethe:—

Ihr drängt euch zu! Nun gut, so mögt ihr walten....

Of course I had to leave many a gap in my sketch of Auld Lang Syne. Dates, even names, would now and then leave me in the lurch, and as I had no means of verifying anything, I had to wait till I was settled again among my books and letters and papers at home. But though I corrected some glaring anachronisms and some mistaken names, I could leave my MS. very much as it had been written down in my temporary exile, and I can therefore vouch for its truth so far that it is an exact copy of the negative developed by long exposure in my memory. Whether it is accurate, who can tell? I know from sad experience that my memory is no longer what it was. All I can say is that the positive copy here published is as true and as exact as the rays of the evening sun of life, falling on the negative in my memory, could make it. Though I have suppressed whatever could possibly have given offence to any sensible person, however sensitive, I have not retouched the pictures of my friends or acquaintances, nor have I tried, as is now so much the fashion, to take out all the lines and wrinkles so that nothing remains but the washed-out faces of angels.

What I give here is but a small portion of the panorama of life that has passed before my eyes. Of myself there is but little, for the spectator or interpreter in a panorama should remain unseen and in the dark. It is a pleasure to him, though often a sad pleasure, to see once more what he has seen before, to live the old time over again, to look once more at dear faces, once so full of love and life, to feel the touch of a vanished hand, and hear a voice that is still.

As we grow old it is our fate to lose our friends; but the friends we have lost are often nearer to us than those who remain. Will they never be quite near to us again? Stars meet stars after thousands of years, and are we not of more value than many a star?

F. MAX MÜLLER.

CONTENTS

PAGE
MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS 1

LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS—
I. 40
II. 86
III. 120
IV. 164

RECOLLECTIONS OF ROYALTIES—
I. 205
II. 245

BEGGARS 289

INDEX 321

AULD LANG SYNE

MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS

The man that has no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

Thus wrote Shakespeare; but with all due respect for the immortal bard, he was wrong for once. Did not my dear friend, Arthur Stanley, hate music, and was he not to be trusted? Were his affections dark as Erebus?

True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be without that life is the same loss as to be blind, and not to know the infinite blue of the sky, the varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of the sea. Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond all definition. How different music is from all other arts! They all have something to imitate which is brought to us by the senses. But what does music imitate? Not the notes of the lark, nor the roar of the sea; they cannot be imitated, and if they are, it is but a caricature. The melodies of Schubert were chosen, not from the Prater, but from another world.

For educational purposes music is invaluable. It softens the young barbarian, it makes him use his fingers deftly, it lifts him up, it brings him messages from another world, it makes him feel the charm of harmony and beauty. There is no doubt an eternal harmony that pervades every kind of music, and there are the endless varieties of music, some so strange that they seem hardly to deserve to be called a gift of the Muses. There is in music something immortal and something mortal. There is even habit in music; for the music that delights us sounds often hideous to uneducated ears.

Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on mathematics, and handed down to the present age after many centuries of growth. But when we hear it for the first time, it seems mere noise, without melody, without harmony, without rhythm. The Maoris have their own music too, but send a New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beethoven, and, if he can, he will certainly run away long before the finale.

In a lesser degree it is the same with us. Beethoven’s compositions were at first considered wild and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and Haydn could not endure him. Afterwards the world was educated up to his Ninth Symphony, but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and violin were played by Mendelssohn and David in my hearing, and they both shrugged their shoulders, and thought that the old man had been no longer quite himself when he wrote them. We have grown into them, or up to them, and now many a young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy them honestly. I remember the time when Schumann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and the very same songs which now delight us were then by the best judges called curious, strange, interesting, promising, but no more. Yes, there is habit in music, and we are constantly passing through a musical education; nay, the time comes when our education seems finished, and we can learn and take in no more. I have passed through a long school. I began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose to Schumann, and reached even Brahms; but I could never get beyond, I could never learn to enjoy Wagner except now and then in one of his lucid intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, but surely the _vulgus profanum_ also has its rights and may protest against being tired instead of being refreshed and invigorated by music. Would Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beethoven have listened to his music, would Bach have tolerated it? Yet these were musicians too, though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be honest, a great deal of Wagner’s music seems tiresome to me, and I do not see why it should ever end.

My musical education began very early, so early that I cannot remember ever passing through any drudgery. As long as I remember I could play, and I was destined to become a musician, till I went to the University, and Mendelssohn advised me to keep to Greek and Latin. I was born and brought up in Dessau, a small German town in an oasis of oak-trees where the Elbe and the Mulde meet, a town then overflowing with music. Such towns exist no longer.

When I went to school at Dessau, this small capital of the small Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau counted, I believe, not more than ten or twelve thousand inhabitants. Everybody knew everybody. As a boy I knew not only the notables of Dessau, I knew the shops and the shopmen, the servants, the day-labourers (_Tagelöhner_) who sawed and split wood in the street, every old woman that sold apples, every beggar that asked for a Pfennig—mark, not a penny, but the tenth part of a penny. It was a curious town, with one long street running through it, the _Cavalierstrasse_, very broad, with pavements on each side. But the street had to be weeded from time to time, there being too little traffic to prevent the grass from growing up between the chinks of the stones. The houses had generally one storey only; those of two or three storeys were mostly buildings erected by the Duke for his friends and his higher officials. Many houses were mere cottages, consisting of a ground floor and a high roof. Almost every house had a small mysterious looking-glass fastened outside the window in which the dwellers within could watch and discuss an approaching visitor long before he or she came within speaking distance. It was the fashion not only to whitewash the plastered walls of houses, but to green-wash, or to blue-wash, or to pink-wash them. All this is changed now; few people remember the old streets, with distant lamps swinging across to make darkness more visible at night, and with long waterspouts frowning down on the pavement like real gurgoyles, and not frowning only, but during a thunderstorm pouring down buckets of water on the large red and green umbrellas of the passers-by.

Dessau was then a very poor town, but a _læta paupertas_ reigned in it; everybody knew how much everybody else possessed or earned, and no one was expected to spend more than was justified by his position. We can hardly understand now with how little people then managed, not only to live, but thoroughly to enjoy the highest pleasures of life. My grandfather, who was the Duke’s Prime Minister, received, I believe, no more than two thousand thalers (£300) salary, though there may have been additional allowances for rent, carriages and horses. But there was a curious mixture of simplicity of life and enjoyments of the highest kind. I remember in my grandfather’s house delightful social gatherings, musical and literary performances. I remember Mozart’s “Don Juan,” Beethoven’s “Fidelio” being performed there, the latest works of Goethe and Jean Paul being read and appreciated with a cup of tea or a glass of wine. A more select circle enjoyed their Shakespeare, their Dante, their Calderon in English, Italian, and Spanish. I remember my grandfather (the son of Basedow, the reformer of national education in Germany) in his Court uniform, driving to Court in his carriage and pair, servants in full livery, everybody making room for him and bowing deep on each side, hat in hand. And when he came back from Court, was it not a real holiday for his grandchildren to turn the pockets of his uniform inside out—the pockets were lined on purpose with soft leather—to see what bonbons and cakes he had brought home for us from _Tafel_—_i.e._, dinner at Court? Almost my first recollections come from my grandfather’s house. My mother, after the very early death of my father, who died before I was four years old, had gone back to live at her father’s house. This was a very common arrangement then. Two or three generations often lived together in the same house, and among the better families the house was looked upon as a common home, descending from father to son and grandson. There was a large garden stretching out behind the house, which was our playground. Our neighbours’ gardens were separated on each side from our own by a low hedge only. Next door to us was the house of a soap and candle maker, and I still remember the disagreeable smells on the day when soap was boiled and candles were drawn. People talked across the garden hedge to their neighbours, and all the affairs of the town were discussed there. Our neighbour on the right side took lodgers, and one of them was a young man who had come to Dessau to study music under F. Schneider, and at the same time to give music lessons. He had been a theological student, but had _umgesattelt_ (changed saddles), and now tried to support himself as best he could at Dessau. He often talked to me across the garden hedge (I was only five years old). One day he lifted me across into his own garden, and asked whether I would like to learn the pianoforte. I, of course, said yes, and he then bade me promise to come to him every day for half an hour, but not to say a word to my mother or to anybody else. The bargain was struck; I kept my music quite secret, till, after about half a year or so, I sat down at my grandfather’s pianoforte, and to the amazement of everybody played some easy pieces of Mozart or Diabelli. Of course the young theological student—his name was Kahle—was engaged at once to be my music-master. He charged five Groschen (sixpence) for a lesson, and I made very rapid progress. My mother was very musical; she had a splendid alto voice, and was often invited to sing the solos at the great musical festivals in Germany. My aunts, too, sang very well, and as a little boy I could sing all the songs which they sang, and well remember being put on a table to sing Händel’s great arias, “Schnell wie des Blitzes Strahl,” etc. Dessau at that time was steeped in music.

The reigning Duke kept a first-rate orchestra, and at the head of it was Friedrich Schneider, a well-known composer of the old school, a cantor, like Bach, but also Ducal Capellmeister, and the head of what was then called a musical school, now a conservatorium. This school was frequented by students from all parts of Germany, and it has produced some excellent musicians and well-known composers. There were public concerts given regularly every fortnight at a very low charge, and there were rehearsals twice a week, at which a few people only were allowed to be present. I was one of the few, and every Tuesday and Friday after school I sat there for an hour or two hearing the very best music excellently performed, and being deeply impressed, nay, awed by old Schneider, who stormed at the players when a single note went wrong, and used language which I was not allowed to repeat. He was a character. A small, square man, with greyish hair flowing down to his shoulders, his black eyes full of fire, and sometimes of fury. He was very fond of his glass of wine, which had given to his whole face, and particularly to his nose, a glowing ruddy complexion. He brooked no opposition from anybody, and he was the terror of all the young musicians who showed themselves at Dessau. His orchestra had such a reputation at that time that some of the greatest celebrities considered it an honour either to have their compositions performed or to be allowed to sing or play at his concerts. I remember Paganini, Sonntag, Spohr, Mendelssohn (then quite a young man), and many more passing through their ordeal at Dessau. Mendelssohn’s visit left a deep impression on my mind. I was still a mere child, he a very young man, and, as I thought, with the head of an angel. Mendelssohn’s was always a handsome face, but later in life the sharpness of his features betrayed his Jewish blood. He excelled as an organ player, and while at Dessau he played on the organ in the _Grosse Kirche_, chiefly extempore. I was standing by him, when he took me on his knees and asked me to play a choral while he played the pedal. I see it all now as if it had been yesterday, and I felt convinced at that time that I too (_anch’ io_) would be a musician. Was not Weber, Karl Maria von Weber, my godfather, and had he not given me my surname of Max? My father and mother had been staying with Weber at Dresden, and my father had undertaken to write the text for a new opera, which was never finished. Weber was then writing his “Freischütz,” and my mother has often described to me how he would walk about the whole day in his room composing, not before the pianoforte, but with a small guitar, and how she heard every melody gradually emerging from the twang of his little instrument. Both his wife and my mother were expecting their confinement, and it was arranged that if the children should be boys, they should be called Max, if girls, Agathe. We were both boys, and Weber’s son, Max Maria von Weber, became a distinguished traveller, a most charming writer, and at last an influential financier in the Austrian service. He stayed with me several times at Oxford, and we exchanged notes about our respective fathers. He published a life of his father, which has, I believe, been translated into English.

Old Schneider was kind to young Mendelssohn, whenever he came to Dessau; they were both ardent admirers of Händel and Bach, but the more modern and romantic compositions of the young composer did not quite meet the approval of the severe Maestro. Schneider was terribly outspoken, and apt to lose his temper and become violent. He once had a most painful scene with Madame Sonntag, or rather with Countess Something, as she was then. First of all, he thought very little of any composer whose name ended in _ini_ or _ante_, and he would but seldom yield to the Duke and Duchess when they wished now and then to have some of Rossini’s or Mercadante’s music performed by their own orchestra. But when the Italian Countess ventured to speak to his orchestra and to ask them for a _ritardando_ of her own, he flourished his bâton and broke out: “Madame,” he said, “you may sing as you like, but I look after of my orchestra,” and there was an end of it.

Life went on, and what time I could spare from school work, perhaps too much, was given to music. There was not an air or a symphony of Beethoven’s which at that time I could not have hummed from beginning to end, and even now I often detect myself humming, “Ich bin’s, du bist’s, O himmlisches Entzücken!” Who does not know that duet between Fidelio and Florestan? Much of that humming repertorio has remained with me for life, though I cannot always tell now where an Allegro or Adagio comes from. It comes without being called, I cannot drive it away when I want to be quiet. I hum the bass, I whistle the piccolo, I draw out the notes from the violoncello, I blow the trumpet, in fact I often feel like Queen Bess, “And she shall have music wherever she goes.”

When I was about eleven or twelve, old Schneider allowed me to play with accompaniment of the full orchestra some concertos of Mozart, etc. This was a great event in my quiet life, and everything looked as if music was to be my profession. When afterwards I went to the Nicolai School at Leipzig, the school at which Leibniz (not Leibnitz) had been educated, I lived again in the musical house of Professor Carus. His wife sang sweetly; his son, my old friend, Professor V. Carus, was an excellent violin player, a pupil of David. I myself began to play the violoncello, but without much success, and I joined a chorus under Mendelssohn, who was then director of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig. We often had to sing anything he had composed and wished to hear before performing it in public. As a friend of my father and my mother, Mendelssohn was always most charming to me, but he did not encourage my idea of a musical career. The fact was I had not time to serve two masters. I could not practise and study music as it ought to be practised and studied without neglecting Greek and Latin, and, as life became more serious, my mind was more and more drawn to the thoughts of antiquity, to Homer and Cicero, and away from the delights of music. I heard excellent music at the house of Professor Carus. I still have an old slip of paper on which Mendelssohn, Liszt, David, Kalliwoda and Hiller wrote their names for me one evening after they had been playing quartettes at Professor Carus’s house. (See page 14.)

I even ventured while at Leipzig to play sometimes at public concerts in the neighbourhood. But when I began to look forward to what I should make of my life, and how I should carve out for myself a useful career, I saw that music was out of the question. There was another consideration which determined my choice. There was much deafness in my family. My mother became deaf when she was still quite young, my grandmother, several of my uncles and cousins, all had lost their hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to choose a profession which would be possible even if I should share the same misfortune. I could not think of medicine, or law, or the Church—so I said to myself, keep to Greek and Latin, try to be a scholar. A professorship was my highest ambition, but I thought that even if that should fail, I might find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and support myself by my pen. So music had to step into the background, not altogether, but so as not to interfere with more serious work. No, music, though somewhat slighted, has remained a true and faithful friend to me through life. I have enjoyed music until very late in life when I began to feel satisfied, and would much rather hum a symphony to myself than hear it played, often not half so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the marvellous Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. These were the perfection of instrumental music. Never has any other performance come near them. It was difficult to get a ticket. People used to form _queue_ and stand the whole night in order to secure the next morning an _abonnement_ for the season. To buy a ticket was beyond my means, for when I was at Paris I had entirely to support myself. But a friend of mine took me to the Conservatoire, and I often sat in the corridor without seeing the orchestra, listening as if to organ music. It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra was first-rate—the players had mostly passed through the same school, the conductor was an old man with a German name which I forget. Was it Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and certainly his orchestra marched like a regiment of soldiers.

And besides being a constant source of the highest enjoyment to me, music has often helped me in my pilgrimage through life. Both in Paris and later on in London, many a house was open to me which would have remained closed to a mere scholar. Musicians also always took an interest in the son of the poet, Wilhelm Müller, whose songs had been set to music, not only by Schubert, but by many other popular composers. I well remember, when telling Jenny Lind whose son I was, how she held up her hands and said: “What? the son of the poet of the ‘Müllerlieder’! Now sit down,” she said, “and let me sing you the ‘Schöne Müllerin.’” And she began to sing, and sang all the principal songs of that sad idyll, just moving her head and hands a little, but really acting the whole story as no actress on the stage could have acted it. It was a perfect tragedy, and it has remained with me for life. Stockhausen also (who, as I saw too late, has just been celebrating his seventieth birthday) once sang the “Winterreise” to me in the same way, but as I had to accompany him I had only half the pleasure, though even that was great.

How many memories crowd in upon me! I heard Liszt when I was still at school at Leipzig. It was his first entry into Germany, and he came like a triumphator. He was young, theatrical, and terribly attractive, as ladies, young and old, used to say. His style of playing was then something quite new—now every player lets off the same fireworks. The musical critics who then ruled supreme at Leipzig were somewhat coy and reserved, and I remember taking a criticism to the editor of the _Leipziger Tageblatt_ which the writer did not wish to sign with his own name. Mendelssohn only, with his well-tempered heart, received him with open arms. He gave a _matinée musicale_ at his house, all the best known musicians of the place being present. I remember, though vaguely, David, Kalliwoda, Hiller; I doubt whether Schumann and Clara Wieck were present. Well, Liszt appeared in his Hungarian costume, wild and magnificent. He told Mendelssohn that he had written something special for him. He sat down, and swaying right and left on his music-stool, played first a Hungarian melody, and then three or four variations, one more incredible than the other.

We stood amazed, and after everybody had paid his compliments to the hero of the day, some of Mendelssohn’s friends gathered round him, and said: “Ah, Felix, now we can pack up (‘jetzt können wir einpacken’). No one can do that; it is over with us!” Mendelssohn smiled; and when Liszt came up to him asking him to play something in turn, he laughed and said that he never played now; and this, to a certain extent, was true. He did not give much time to practising then, but worked chiefly at composing and directing his concerts. However, Liszt would take no refusal, and so at last little Mendelssohn, with his own charming playfulness, said: “Well, I’ll play, but you must promise me not to be angry.” And what did he play? He sat down and played first of all Liszt’s Hungarian Melody, and then one variation after another, so that no one but Liszt himself could have told the difference. We all trembled lest Liszt should be offended, for Mendelssohn could not keep himself from slightly imitating Liszt’s movements and raptures. However, Mendelssohn managed never to offend man, woman, or child. Liszt laughed and applauded, and admitted that no one, not he himself, could have performed such a _bravura_. Many years after I saw Liszt once more, at the last visit he paid to London. He came to the Lyceum to see Irving and Ellen Terry act in “Faust.” The whole theatre rose when the old, bent Maestro appeared in the dress circle. When the play was over, I received an invitation from Mr., now Sir Henry, Irving to join a supper party in honour of Liszt. I could not resist, though I was staying with friends in London and had no latch-key. It was a brilliant affair. Rooms had been fitted up on purpose with old armour, splendid pictures, gorgeous curtains. We sat down, about thirty people; I knew hardly anybody, though they were all known to fame, and not to know them was to profess oneself unknown. However, I was placed next to Liszt, and I reminded him of those early Leipzig days. He was not in good spirits; he would not speak English, though Ellen Terry sat on his right side, and, as she would not speak German or French, I had to interpret as well as I could, and it was not always easy. At last Miss Ellen Terry turned to me and said: “Tell Liszt that I can speak German,” and when he turned to listen, she said in her girlish, bell-like voice: “Lieber Liszt, ich liebe Dich.” I hope I am not betraying secrets; anyhow, as I have been indiscreet once, I may as well say what happened to me afterwards. It was nearly 3 A.M. when I reached my friend’s house. With great difficulty I was able to rouse a servant to let me in, and when the next morning I was asked where I had been, great was the dismay when I said that I had had supper at the Lyceum. Liszt had promised to come to stay with me at Oxford, but the day when I expected him, the following note arrived from Amsterdam, probably one of the last he ever wrote:—

A few weeks after, I saw his death announced in the papers.

And thus Liszt left the stage. I saw his entrance and his exit, and when I asked myself, What has he left behind? I could only think of the new school of brilliant executionists of which he may truly be called the founder and life-long apostle. I confess that, though I feel dazzled at the impossibilities which he and his pupils perform with their ten fingers, I often sigh for an Allegro or an Andante by Haydn and Mozart as they were played in my young days with simplicity and purity on very imperfect instruments. Players now seem to think of themselves only, not of the musical poets whose works they are to render. Mendelssohn, Clara Wieck (Madame Schumann) even Moscheles and Hummel acted as faithful interpreters. On listening to them, exquisite as their execution was, one thought far more of what they played than how they played. That time is gone, and no one has now, or will ever have again, the courage to bring it back. If one wants to enjoy a sonata of Haydn one has to play it oneself or hum it, because the old fingers will not do their work any longer.

And Mendelssohn also, whom I had known as a young man, said good-bye to me for the last time in London. It was after the first performance of his “Elijah” in 1847. He too said he would come again next year, and then came the news of his sudden death. I saw him last at Bunsen’s house, where he played at a _matinée musicale_ always ready to please and oblige his friends, always amiable and charming, even under great provocation. Only once I remember seeing him almost beside himself with anger, and well he might be. He possessed a most valuable album, with letters, poems, pictures, compositions of the most illustrious men of the age, such as Goethe and others. The binding had somewhat suffered, so it was sent to be mended, and I was present when it came back. It was at his sister’s house, Fanny Hensel’s, at Berlin. Mendelssohn opened the album, jumped up and screamed. The binder had cut off the blue skies and tree-tops of all the Italian sketches, and the signatures of most of the poems and letters. This was too much for _Felix_, he was for once _infelix_. Still, happy and serene as his life certainly was, for he had everything a man of his talents could desire, there were bitter drops in it of which the world knew little, and need not know anything now. There are things we know, important things which the world would be glad to know. But we bury them; they are to be as if they had never been, like letters that are reduced to ashes and can never be produced again by friends or enemies.

He was devoted to his sister Fanny, who was married to Hensel the painter, an intimate friend of my father. When I was a student at Berlin, I was much in their house in the _Leipziger Strasse_, and heard many a private concert given in the large room looking out on the garden. Mendelssohn played almost every instrument in the orchestra, and had generally to play the instrument which he was supposed to play worst. When he played the pianoforte, he was handicapped by being made to play with his arms crossed. All the celebrities of Berlin (and Berlin was then rich in celebrities) were present at those musical gatherings, and Mendelssohn was the life of the whole. He was never quiet for a moment, moving from chair to chair and conversing with everybody.

Boeckh, the great Greek scholar, lived in the same house, and Mendelssohn had received so good a classical education that he could hold his own when discussing with the old master the choruses of the Antigone. Mendelssohn was, in fact, a man _teres et rotundus_. He was at home in classical literature, he spoke French and English, he was an exquisite draughtsman, and had seen the greatest works of the greatest painters, ancient and modern. His father, a rich banker in Berlin, had done all he could for the education of his children. He was the son of Mendelssohn the philosopher, and when his son Felix had become known to fame, he used to say with his slightly Jewish accent: “When I was young I was called the son of the great Mendelssohn; now that I am old I am called the father of the great Mendelssohn; then, what am I?” Well, he found the wherewithal that enabled his son, and his other children too, to become what they were, all worthy of their great grandfather, all worthy of the name of Mendelssohn.

Felix was attached to both his sisters, Fanny and Rebekah (Dirichlet), but he was more particularly devoted to Fanny (Hensel). They had been educated together. She knew Greek and Latin like her brother, she played perfectly, and composed so well that her brother published several of her compositions under his own name. They were one spirit and one soul, and at that time ladies still shrank from publicity. Everybody knew which songs were hers (I remember, for instance, “Schöner und Schöner schmückt sich die Flur”), and it was only later in life that she began to publish under her own name. I give the beginning of a song which she wrote for my mother. The words are my father’s, the little vignette was drawn by her husband, who was an eminent artist at Berlin.

The struggles which many, if not most men of genius, more particularly musicians, have had to pass through were unknown to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Some people go so far as to say that they miss the traces of those struggles in his character and in his music. And yet those who knew him best know that his soul, too, knew its own bitterness. His happiest years were no doubt spent at Leipzig, where I saw much of him while I was at school and at the University. He was loved and admired by everybody; he was undisputed master in the realm of music. He was at first unmarried, and many were the rumours as to who should be his bride. News had reached his friends that his heart had been won by a young lady at Frankfurt; but nobody, not even his most intimate friends, knew for certain. However, one evening he had just returned from Frankfurt, and had to conduct one of the Gewandhaus Concerts. The last piece was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I had sung in the chorus, and found myself on the orchestra when the concert was over, the room nearly empty, except his personal friends, who surrounded him and teased him about his approaching engagement. His beaming face betrayed him, but he would say nothing to anybody, till at last he sat down and extemporised on the pianoforte. And what was the theme of his fantasy? It was the passage of the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, mische seinen Jubel ein.” That was his confession to his friends, and then we all knew. And she was indeed “ein holdes Weib” when she arrived at Leipzig. One thing only she lacked—she could not express all she felt. She was soon called the “Goddess of Silence” by the side of her devoted husband, who never could be silent, but was always bubbling over like champagne in a small glass. They were a devoted couple, not a whisper was ever heard about either of them, though Mendelssohn had many friends, the greatest of all being his sister Fanny. With her he could speak and exchange whatever was uppermost or deepest in his heart. I have heard them extemporise together on the pianoforte, one holding with his little finger the little finger of the other. Her death was the heaviest loss he ever suffered in life. He was so unaccustomed to suffering and distress that he could never recover from this unexpected blow. Nor did he survive her long. She died on the 14th of May, 1847; he followed her on the 4th of November of the same year.

During most of the time when Mendelssohn celebrated his triumphs as director of the Gewandhaus Concerts, young Robert Schumann was at Leipzig, but he was little seen. Mendelssohn, so bright and happy himself, wished to see the whole world around him bright and happy, and was kind to everybody. The idea of jealousy was impossible at that time in Mendelssohn’s heart. Neither could Schumann, as a young and rising musician, have thought himself then to be in any sense an equal or rival of Mendelssohn. But there are natures which like to be left alone, or with a very few intimate friends only, and which shrink from the too demonstrative happiness of others. It is not envy, it often is modesty; but in any case it is not pleasant. Schumann was conscious of his own strength, but he was still struggling for recognition, and he was also struggling against that adversity of fortune which seems to decree poverty to be the lot of genius. There was another struggle going on, a struggle which is generally fought out in private, but which in his case was carried on before the eyes of the world, at least the musical world of Leipzig. He was devoted to a young pianoforte player, Clara Wieck. But her father, a great teacher of music, would not allow the marriage. He had devoted years of his life to the musical education of his daughter, and then, as she was just beginning to earn applause for herself and her master, as well as the pecuniary reward for their combined labours, a young musician, poor, and not yet recognised, wished to carry her off. Parents have flinty hearts, and the father said “No.”

Many a time have I watched young Schumann walking alone in the neighbourhood of Leipzig, being unexpectedly met by a young lady, both looking not so happy as I thought that under the circumstances they ought. This went on for some time, till at last, as usual, the severe or flinty-hearted father had to give way, and allow a marriage which certainly for many years was the realisation of the most perfect happiness, till it ended in a terrible tragedy. There was the seed of madness in the genius of Schumann as in that of so many really great men, and in an access of mania he sought and found rest where Ophelia sought and found it.

I did not see much of Schumann, nor of Madame Schumann, in later life, though in concerts in London I often admired her exquisite rendering of her husband’s compositions. I only recollect Schumann as a young man sitting generally in a corner of the orchestra, and listening to one of his works being performed under Mendelssohn’s direction. I remember his very large head, his drooping eyes; I hardly ever remember a smile on his face. And yet the man must have been satisfied, if not happy, who could write such music as his, who could write, “Wohlauf noch getrunken den funklenden Wein!” and he lived to see his own creations admired more even than those of Mendelssohn. He lived to see his critics turned into admirers; in fact he educated his public, and gained a place for that thoughtful, wistful, fairy-like music which is peculiarly his own.

Many celebrated musicians stayed at Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s reign. I remember Moscheles, Thalberg, Sterndale Bennett, Clara Novello, young and fascinating, and many more. Another friend of Mendelssohn who stayed some time at Leipzig was Ferdinand Hiller. We heard several of his compositions, symphonies and all the rest, performed at the Gewandhaus Concerts under Mendelssohn’s direction. In his life there was, perhaps, too little of the _dira necessitas_ that has given birth to so many of the masterpieces of genius. He might, no doubt, have produced much more than he did; but that he was striving to the very end of his life was proved to me by an interesting letter I received from him about a year before his death. His idea was to write a great oratorio, and he wanted me to supply him with a text. It was a colossal plan, and I confess it seemed to me beyond the power of any musician, nay, of any poet. It was to be a historical drama, representing first of all the great religions of the world, each by itself. We were to have the hymns of the Veda, the Gâthas of the Avesta, the Psalms of the Old Testament, the Sermons and Dialogues of Buddha, the trumpet-calls of Mohammed, and, lastly, the Sermon on the Mount, all of them together forming one mighty symphony in which no theme was lost, yet all became in the end an accompaniment of one sweet song of love dominating the full chorus of the ancient religions of the world. It was a grand idea, but was it possible to realise it? I was ready to help, but before a year was over I received the news of Hiller’s death, and who is the musician to take his place, always supposing that he could have achieved such a World Oratorio?

It was in the last year of his life that Mendelssohn paid his last visit to England to conduct his last oratorio, the “Elijah.” It had to be performed at Exeter Hall, then the best place for sacred music. Most of the musicians, however, were not professionals, and they had only bound themselves to attend a certain number of rehearsals. Excellent as they were in such oratorios as the “Messiah,” which they knew by heart, a new oratorio, such as the “Elijah,” was too much for them; and I well remember Mendelssohn, in the afternoon before the performance, declaring he would not conduct.

“Oh, these tailors and shoemakers,” he said, “they cannot do it, and they will not practise! I shall not go.” However, a message arrived that the Queen and Prince Albert were to be present, so nothing remained but to go. I was present, the place was crowded. Mendelssohn conducted, and now and then made a face, but no one else detected what was wrong. It was a great success and a great triumph for Mendelssohn. If he could have heard it performed as it was performed at Exeter Hall in later years, when his tailors and shoemakers knew it by heart, he would not have made a face.

It was at Bunsen’s house, at a _matinée musicale_, that I saw him last. He took the liveliest interest in my work, the edition of the Rig Veda, the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans. A great friend of his, Friedrich Rosen, had begun the same work, but had died before the first volume was finished. He was a brother of the wife of Mendelssohn’s great friend, Klingemann, then Hanoverian Chargé d’Affaires in London, a poet many of whose poems were set to music by Mendelssohn. So Mendelssohn knew all about the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans, and talked very intelligently about the Veda. He was, however, subjected to a very severe trial of patience soon after. The room was crowded with what is called the best society of London, and Mendelssohn being asked to play, never refused. He played several things, and at last Beethoven’s so-called “Moonlight Sonata.” All was silence and delight; no one moved, no one breathed aloud. Suddenly in the middle of the Adagio, a stately dowager sitting in the front row was so carried away by the rhythm, rather than by anything else, of Beethoven’s music, that she began to play with her fan, and accompanied the music by letting it open and shut with each bar. Everybody stared at her, but it took time before she perceived her atrocity, and at last allowed her fan to collapse. Mendelssohn in the meantime kept perfectly quiet, and played on; but, when he could stand it no longer, he simply repeated the last bar in arpeggios again and again, following the movements of her fan; and when at last the fan stopped, he went on playing as if nothing had happened. I dare say that when the old dowager thanked him for the great treat he had given her, he bowed without moving a muscle of his inspired face. How different from another player who, when disturbed by some noise in the audience, got up in a rage and declared that either she or the talker must leave the room.

And yet I have no doubt the old lady enjoyed the music in her own way, for there are many ways of enjoying music. I have known people who could not play a single instrument, who could not sing “God save the Queen” to save their life, in eloquent raptures about Mendelssohn, nay, about Beethoven and Bach. I believe they are perfectly honest in their admiration, though how it is done I cannot tell. I began by saying that people who have no music in them need not be traitors, and I alluded to my dear friend Stanley. He actually suffered from listening to music, and whenever he could, he walked out of the room where there was music. He never disguised his weakness, he never professed any love or admiration for music, and yet Jenny Lind once told me he paid her the highest compliment she had ever received. Stanley was very fond of Jenny Lind, but when she stayed at his father’s palace at Norwich he always left the room when she sang. One evening Jenny Lind had been singing Händel’s “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Stanley, as usual, had left the room, but he came back after the music was over, and went shyly up to Jenny Lind. “You know,” he said, “I dislike music; I don’t know what people mean by admiring it. I am very stupid, tone-deaf, as others are colourblind. But,” he said with some warmth, “to-night, when from a distance I heard you singing that song, I had an inkling of what people mean by music. Something came over me which I had never felt before; or, yes, I had felt it once before in my life.” Jenny Lind was all attention. “Some years ago,” he continued, “I was at Vienna, and one evening there was a tattoo before the palace performed by four hundred drummers. I felt shaken, and to-night while listening to your singing, the same feeling came over me; I felt deeply moved.” “Dear man,” she added, “I know he meant it, and a more honest compliment I never received in all my life.”

However, unmusical as Stanley’s house was, Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Goldschmidt as she was then, often came to stay there. “It is so nice,” she said; “no one talks music, there is not even a pianoforte in the house.” This did not last long however. A few days after she said to me: “I hear you have a pianoforte in your rooms at All Souls’. Would you mind my practising a little?” And practise she did, and delightful it was. She even came to dine in College, and after dinner she said in the most charming way: “Do you think your friends would like me to sing?” Of course, I could not have asked her to sing, but there was no necessity for asking my friends. In fact, not only my friends listened with delight to her singing, but the whole quadrangle of All Souls’ was black with uninvited listeners, and the applause after each song was immense, both inside and outside the walls of the College.

Stanley’s feeling about music reminds me of another music-hater at Oxford, the late Dr. Gaisford, the famous Dean of Christ Church. It was he who put my name on the books of “The House,” a very great honour to an unknown German scholar on whom the University, at his suggestion, had just conferred the degree of M.A. What the Dean’s idea of music was may best be judged from his constantly appointing old scouts or servants who were too old to do their work any longer as bedmakers to be singing men in the Cathedral choir. The Dean’s stall was under the organ, and one day in every month, when “The voice of Thy thunder was heard round about, and the lightnings shone upon the ground, and the earth was moved and shook withal,” a certain key in the organ made the seat on which the Dean sat vibrate under him. On that day, before he left the Cathedral, he invariably thanked the organist, Dr. Corfe, for the nice tune he had played.

Music, in fact, was at a very low ebb at Oxford when I arrived there. The young men would have considered it almost _infra dignitatem_ to play any instrument; the utmost they would do was now and then to sing a song. Yet there was much love of music, and many of my young and old friends were delighted when I would play to them. There was only one other person at Oxford then who was a real musician and who played well, Professor Donkin, a great mathematician, and altogether a man _sui generis_. He was a great invalid; in fact, he was dying all the years I knew him, and was fully aware of it. It seemed to be quite admissible, therefore, that he, being an invalid, and I, being a German, should “make music” at evening parties; but to ask a head of a house or a professor, or even a senior tutor, to play would have been considered almost an insult. And yet I feel certain there is more love, more honest enjoyment of music in England than anywhere else.

And how has the musical tide risen at Oxford since those days! Some of the young men now come up to college as very good performers on the pianoforte and other instruments. I never know how they learn it, considering the superior claims which cricket, football, the river, nay, the classics and mathematics also have on their time at school. There are musical clubs now at Oxford where the very best classical music may be heard performed by undergraduates with the assistance of some professional players from London. All this is due to the influence of Sir F. Ouseley, and still more of Sir John Stainer, both professors of Music at Oxford. They have made music not only respectable, but really admired and loved among the undergraduates. Sir John Stainer has been indefatigable, and the lectures which he gives both on the science and history of music are crowded by young and old. They are real concerts, in which he is able to illustrate all he has to say with the help of a well-trained choir of Oxford amateurs. As to myself, I have long become a mere listener. One learns the lesson, whether one likes it or not, that there is a time for everything. Old fingers grow stiff and will no longer obey, and if one knows how a sonata of Beethoven ought to be played, it is most painful to play it badly. So at last I said: “Farewell!” The sun has set, though the clouds are roseate still with reflected rays. It may be that I have given too much time to music, but what would life have been without it? I do not like to exaggerate, or say anything that is not quite true. Musical ears grow sensitive to anything false, whether sharp or flat. But let us be quite honest, quite plain. Is there not in music, and in music alone of all the arts, something that is not entirely of this earth? Harmony and rhythm may be under settled laws; and in that sense mathematicians may be right when they call mathematics silent music. But whence comes melody? Surely not from what we hear in the street, or in the woods, or on the sea-shore, not from anything that we hear with our outward ears, and are able to imitate, to improve, or to sublimise. Neither history nor evolution will help us to account for Schubert’s “Trockne Blumen.” Here, if anywhere, we see the golden stairs on which angels descend from heaven to earth, and whisper sweet sounds into the ears of those who have ears to hear. Words cannot be so inspired, for words, we know, are of the earth earthy. Melodies, however, are not of this earth, and the greatest of musical poets has truly said:—

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS
I

I am the son of a poet, and I have tried very hard all my life not to be a poet myself, if poet means a man who tries to make his thoughts dance gracefully in the chains of metre and rhyme. In my own very prosaic work I have had to suffer all my life from suppressed poetry, as one suffers from suppressed gout. Poets will, no doubt, protest most emphatically against so low a view of their art. They assure us that they never feel their chains, and that they are perfectly free in giving expression to their thoughts in rhyme and metre. Some of the more honest among them have even gone so far as to confess that their best thoughts had often been suggested to them by the rhyme. Platen may be quite right when he says:

Was stets und aller Orten sich ewig jung erweist
Ist in gebundenen Worten ein ungebundener Geist.

(What proves itself eternal in every place and time
Is an unfettered spirit, free in the chains of rhyme.)

True, very true. You may get that now and then, but in our modern languages it is but seldom that thought soars up quite free on the wings of rhyme. Many and many a thought sinks down because of the weight of the rhyme, many and many a thought remains altogether unspoken because it will not submit to the strait jacket of the rhyme; many and many a poor thought is due entirely to an irrepressible rhyme; and if some brilliant thoughts have really been suggested by the rhyme, would it not be better if they had been suggested by something else, whether you call it mind or soul? The greatest masters of rhyme, such as Browning in English or Rückert in German, and even H. Heine, often fall victims to their own mastery. They spoil their poems in order to show that they can find a rhyme for anything and everything, however grotesque the rhyme may be. I remember once being bold enough to ask Tennyson what was the use or excuse of rhyme. He was not offended, but was quite ready with his answer: “Rhyme helps the memory,” he said—and that answer was as honest as it was true. But what is useful for one purpose, for the purpose of recollecting, may be anything but useful for other purposes, it may be even hurtful, and in our case it has certainly proved hurtful again and again to the natural flow and expression of thought and feeling.

Nor should I venture to say a word against Platen’s _gebundene Worte_. It was only the very necessity of finding a word to answer to _time_ which led me to speak of chains of _rhyme_. _Gebundene Worte_ are not necessarily rhymed words, they are measured words, and these are no doubt quite natural and quite right for poetry. Metre is measure, and metrical utterance, in that sense, was not only more natural for the expression of the highest thoughts, but was probably everywhere more ancient also than prose. In every literature, as far as we know, poetry came first, prose second. Inspired utterance requires, nay produces, rhythmic movements not only of the voice (song and prosodia), but of the body also (dance). In Greek, _chorus_ means dance, measured movement, and the Greek choruses were originally dances; nay, it can be proved that these dancing movements formed really the first metres of true poetry. Hence, it was quite natural that David should have danced before the Lord with all his might. Language itself bears witness to the fact that the oldest metres were the steps and movements of dancers. As the old dances consisted of steps, the ancient metres consisted of feet. Even we ourselves still speak of feet, not because we understand what it means, but simply because the Greeks and Romans spoke of feet, and they said so because originally the feet really marked the metre.

The ancient poets of the Veda also speak of feet, and they seem to have been quite aware why they spoke of metrical feet, for in the names of some of their metres we still find clear traces of the steps of the dances which accompanied their poems. _Trishtubh_, one of their ancient metres, meant three-step; _Anushtubh_, the later Sloka, meant by-step[1] or Reigen. The last syllables or steps of each line were called the _Vritta_, or the turn, originally the turn of the dancers, who seem to have been allowed to move more freely till they came to the end of one movement. Then, before they turned, or while they turned, they marked the steps more sharply and audibly, either as iambic or as trochaic, and afterwards marched back again with greater freedom. Hence in ancient Sanskrit the end or turn of each line was under stricter rules as to long and short steps, or long and short syllables, whereas greater freedom was allowed for the rest of a line. Thus Sanskrit _Vritta_, the _turn_, came to mean the metre of the whole line, just as in Latin we have the same word _versus_, literally the turn, then verse, and this turn became the name for verse, and remained so to the present day. There is no break in our history, and language is the chain that holds it together. A strophe also was originally a turning, to be followed by the antistrophe or the return, all ideas derived from dancing. The ancient Sanskrit name for metre and metrical or measured speed was _Kh_andas. The verb _Kh_and would correspond phonetically to Latin _scandere_, in the sense of marching, as in _a-scendere_, to march upward, to mount, and _de-scendere_, to march downward, all expressing the same idea of measured movement, but not of rhyme or jingle. These movements were free and natural in the beginning; they became artificial when they became traditional, and we find in such works as the Sanskrit V_ri_tta-ratnâkara, “the treasury of verse,” every kind of monstrosity which was perpetrated by Hindu poets of the Renaissance period, and perpetrated, it must be confessed, with wonderful adroitness.

But I must not tire my friends with these metrical mysteries. What I want them to know is that in the most ancient Aryan poetry which we possess there is no trace of rhyme, except here and there by accident, and that everywhere in the history of the poetry of the Âryas, rhyme, as essential to poetry, is a very late invention. It is the same in Semitic languages, though in Semitic as well as in Aryan speech, in fact, wherever grammatical forms are expressed chiefly by means of terminations, rhyme even in prose is almost inevitable. And this was no doubt the origin of rhyme. In languages where terminations of declension and conjugation and most derivative suffixes have retained a full-bodied and sonorous form, it was difficult to avoid the jingle of rhyme. In Latin, which abounds in such constantly recurring endings as _orum_, _arum_, _ibus_, _amus_, _atis_, _amini_, _tatem_, _tatibus_, _inibus_, etc., good prose writers had actually to be warned against allowing their sentences to rhyme, while poets found it very easy to add these ornamental tails to their measured lines.

There can be little doubt that it was the rhymed Latin poetry, as used in the services of the Roman Catholic Church, which suggested to the German converts the idea of rhymed verses. The pagan poetry of the Teutonic races had no rhymes. It was what is called alliterative. In the German dialects the accent remained mostly on the radical syllable of words, and thus served to shorten the terminations. Hence we find fewer full-bodied terminations in Gothic than in Latin, while in later Teutonic dialects, in English as well as in German, these terminations dwindled away more and more. Thus, we say _Di’ chter_ when the Romans would have _Dicta’ tor_, _Pre’ diger_ for _prœdica’ tor_, _cha’ ncel_ for _cance’ lla_. In order to bind their poetical lines together the German poets had recourse to initial letters, which had to be the same in certain places of each verse, and which, if pronounced with strong stress or strain, left the impression of the words being knitted together and belonging together. Here is a specimen which will show that the rules of alliteration were very strictly observed by the old German poets, far more strictly than by their modern imitators. The old rule was that in a line of eight arses there should be two words in the first and one in the second half beginning with the same letter, consonant or vowel, and always in syllables that had the accent. Here is a line from the old “Song of Hildebrand,” dating from the eighth century:—

=H=iltibraht joh =H=adhubrant =H=iltibraht and =H=adhubrant
Untar =h=arjum tuâm, etc. Between =h=osts twain, etc.

Rückert has imitated this alliterating poetry in his poem of “Roland”:—

=R=oland der =R=ies
=I=m =R=athhaus zu Bremen
=S=teht er im =S=tandbild
=S=tandhaft und wacht.

Kingsley has attempted something like it in his “Longbeard’s Saga,” but with much greater freedom, not to say licence:—

=S=caring the wolf cub,
=S=caring the horn-owl,
=S=haking the snow-wreaths
Down from the pine boughs.

But to return to our modern poetry and to the poets whom I have known, and of whom I have something to tell, does it not show the power of tradition if we see them everywhere forcing their feet into the same small slippers of rhyme? And who would deny that they have achieved, and still are achieving, wonderful feats?—_tours de force_, it is true, but so cleverly performed that one hardly sees a trace of the force employed. No doubt much is lost in this process of beating, and hammering, and welding words together (a poet is called a _Reimeschmied_, a smith of rhymes, in German); much has to be thrown away because it will not rhyme at all (_silver_ has been very badly treated in English poetry, because it rhymes with nothing, at present not even with gold), but what remains is often very beautiful, and, as Tennyson said, it sticks to the memory. One wishes one could add that the difficulty of rhyme serves to reduce the number of unnecessary poets that spring up every year. But rhyme does not strangle these numerous children of the Muses, and it is left to our ill-paid critics to perform every day, or every week, this murder of the innocents.

It may not seem very filial for the son of a poet thus to blaspheme against poetry, or rather, against rhyme. Well, I can admire rhymed poetry, just as I can admire champagne, though if the wine is really good I think it is a pity to make it mousseux.

H. Heine, who certainly was never at a loss for a rhyme, writes, at the end of one of his maddest poems, “Die Liebe”: “O Phœbus Apollo, if these verses are bad, I know thou wilt forgive me, for thou art an all-knowing god, and knowest quite well why for years I could not trouble myself any longer with measuring and rhyming words!” And he adds: “I might, of course, have said all this very well in good prose.” He ought to know, but there will not be many of his admirers to agree with him.[2]

I hardly remember having ever seen my father, and I came to know him chiefly through his poetry. He belonged to the post-Goethe period, though Goethe (died 1832) survived him. He was born in 1794, and died in 1827, and yet in that short time he established a lasting reputation not only as a scholar, but as a most popular poet. His best known poems are the “Griechenlieder,” the Greek songs which he wrote during the Greek war of independence. Alas! in those days battles were won by bravery and the sword, now by discipline and repeating guns. These Greek songs, in which his love of the ancient Greeks is mingled with his admiration for heroes such as Kanaris, Mark Bozzaris, and others who helped to shake off the Turkish yoke, produced a deep impression all over Germany, perhaps because they breathed the spirit of freedom and patriotism, which was then systematically repressed in Germany itself. The Greeks never forgot the services rendered by him in Germany, as by Lord Byron in England, in rousing a feeling of indignation against the Turk, and as the marble for Lord Byron’s monument in London was sent by some Greek admirers of the great poet, the Greek Parliament voted a shipload of Pentelican marble for the national monument erected to my father in Dessau.

My father’s lyrical poems also are well known all over Germany, particularly the cycles of the “Schöne Müllerin” and the “Winterreise,” both so marvellously set to music by Schubert and others. He certainly had caught the true tone of the poetry of the German people, and many of his poems have become national property, being sung by thousands who do not even know whose poems they are singing. As a specimen showing the highest point reached by his poetry, I like to quote his poem on _Vineta_, the old town overwhelmed by the sea on the Baltic coast. The English translation was made for me by my old, now departed, friend, J. A. Froude:—

VINETA.

I. I.

Aus des Meeres tiefem, tiefem From the sea’s deep hollow faintly Grunde pealing,

Klingen Abendglocken dumpf und Far-off evening bells come sad and matt, slow;

Uns zu geben wunderbare Kunde Faintly rise, the wondrous tale
revealing

Von der schönen alten Wunderstadt. Of the old enchanted town below.