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118 rhythm, and set to heavenly melodies,—as long as he has to live, that is, for ever—and yet not compass the full glories of his subject, for it is infinite and Divine.

But let us turn-now and consider some lofty spirits of another class, who have passed from earth—some of them in the prime of life, and in the full glow of their powers. Mozart, the musical wonder of the world—who, in his fifth year, as it is asserted, produced compositions difficult of execution even to practised performers,—whose susceptible nature was so delicate and finely tuned that discords and harsh sounds were sometimes known actually to throw him into convulsions,—this Mozart died at the early age of thirty-six. The body was worn out by the too active spirit. As the swan is said to sing its own death-song, so Mozart composed, with a melancholy prescience, his own requiem. With tears in his eyes, he affirmed to his anxious wife that he was writing the dirge far himself. He did not live to finish it. And what need had he of it? What need that any should sing a hymn for the repose of his soul? But let them, if they choose. Let them toll the "passing-bell,*—let them fill the cathedral vault and the "long-drawn aisles" with solemn harmonies, till they echo from the fretted roof. It may soothe themselves and calm their saddened souls, but will it reach his ear? He is listening now to higher melodies, to sweeter harmonies. He is ascending from the shadow into the light; and as he rises, new strains break upon his spirit-ear, new and delicious sounds, to which the softest of earth were harsh. Ravished, he listens—when, from another quarter of the heavens, strains yet sweeter steal upon