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BEE brother's support; but here was a constant tax that was to surpass all that had preceded. The pecuniary responsibility thus imposed upon him, was, however, matter of little consideration compared with the happiness he anticipated from finding, in his foster-son, a being who would devotedly love him, and so fill up the blank in his heart, of which his disappointed longing made him but too conscious; a being upon whom he might pour the fulness of his power of affection, and believe it to be reciprocated. The vexatious circumstances, however, in which this important legacy involved him, and, still more, the unfitness of his own character, matured and distorted as this had been by a life of isolation, for the duties of a parent, rendered the new relationship in which he was placed, a source of ceaseless harass and anxiety. The first evil of his new relationship, which was in fact the origin of all its sad consequences to him, was a contention with his brother's widow, who, as a mother, claimed a right over her child. This was referred to a legal tribunal, and the suit was not decided in confirmation of the father's will until January, 1820. In the meantime, Beethoven forbade all intercourse between the mother and son; and thus taught his nephew, impelled by natural feeling towards her, to deceive him. With imprudent fondness, he gave the boy unbounded indulgence, by which, however, instead of stimulating the affection he desired, he but made opportunities for imposition upon his kindness. He resented rather than punished the failings of his foster-son, with petulance, more like a spoiled child than a guardian; and his entire course of management was one series of mistaken good intentions. The lawsuit ended, the youth was placed at the university, where he was publicly disgraced for his misconduct. Harassed by his irritated uncle's reproaches, he made an attempt upon his life, for which he was imprisoned as a criminal. The powerful friends of Beethoven enabled him to obtain his nephew's release, and to procure for him a commission in the army. His anxieties for this unhappy young man ceased only with his own life, and the bitter anguish he endured at the disappointment of the doting hopes he had centred in him, was the greatest grief he ever had to suffer. His last act in discharge of the duties he had assumed towards him, was to make this nephew his sole heir; though, in his last moments, as throughout their entire connection, the neglect he experienced was wanton, as the kindness he lavished was profuse. This melancholy train of events yields abundant illustrations of his generous, integritous, loving, suspicious, and exacting character, the faults of which were exaggerations of virtues, or such natural results of his peculiar position as are to be traced directly to the external honours he received and the internal privations he suffered. To add to the vexation of the last dozen years of his life, the pension settled upon him was reduced, first by an alteration in the funds, then by the death of Prince Kirsky, and still further by the ruin of Prince Lobkowitz, so that for long he received only the portion subscribed by his illustrious pupil and munificent friend, the Archduke Rudolf, and that diminished in value by the change in the currency. The increase of his household and other expenses on his nephew's account, the cost of his lawsuit, and the reduction of his income, made him extremely anxious about money matters—anxious to the extent, far beyond what the occasion justified, of dreading the approach of beggary; so we find him in his letters speaking of "writing for bread," and representing himself as fallen into the greatest extremity; whereas, the price he received for his works was now at least fourfold what it had been at the beginning of the century. He had as many commissions as he could execute, and, what is most of all satisfactory, there is no evidence of his ever knowing anything more of want than the fear of its coming. He received successive invitations from our Philharmonic Society, upon the most liberal and advantageous terms, to visit this country, and direct the performance of some of his works. These proposals were especially attractive to him, as, irrespective of the emolument, he was always desirous to see England, the country whose constitution, laws, and institutions, made the nearest approximation to his ideal of government. The latest of these invitations was in December, 1824, but this, like all that had preceded it, was entertained with pleasure only to be rejected with regret. His deafness was, of course, a constant obstacle to his travelling, and his lawsuit, his occasional illness, and his successive troubles with his nephew, raised up, from time to time, difficulties of the moment which were insuperable. Despite the cares by which he was surrounded, imaginary and real, he now concentrated himself upon his art with greater intensity than at any previous time; he produced his longest and most elaborate compositions; he worked at these with unremitted ardour, and he suffered no consideration of popular success or extrinsic effect to interfere with the great internal purpose each was to embody. In 1817 he wrote the Symphony in F, that type of freshness, independence, determination, gaiety, and humour; and while the annoyances of his contention with his brother's widow were at their height, he produced the great Sonata in B flat. Op. 106, one of the most profoundly thoughtful and deeply considered of all his works. His early repugnance to teaching naturally increased as his creative powers became acknowledged, and he had more and more opportunity to exercise them. He never had in fact but two permanent pupils, Ries, and the Archduke Rudolf, which latter would never admit himself to have completed his studies; but indifferent to Beethoven's uncourteous manners, indifferent even to the master's disinclination, took every occasion to make his lessons a pretext for having the great artist beside him, and for heaping favours in recompense for them. The archduke was, in 1819, appointed archbishop of Olmutz, and Beethoven purposed to make a worthy acknowledgment of all the obligations he owed by composing a Mass, to be performed at his inauguration. He entered, accordingly, upon the task with his artistic feelings stimulated to the highest by the keen sense of honour which prompted him to exceed all his former efforts, and prove himself, in the production of his greatest work, equal to what he deemed the greatest occasion for the display of his powers. He was in unusually robust health when he began the Mass in D, and he proceeded vigorously with his labour until he had sketched to the end of the Credo; but now he became fastidious, and repeatedly laying aside the work, to return to it after careful reflection, he protracted its progress to such an extent, that the occasion for which it was designed was come and gone before the composition neared its completion. The incentive to immediate application thus removed, he now continued the work for its own sake, and becoming ever more severe in his self-criticism upon it, its conclusion seemed to grow ever more distant, and, as if by lingering over it he learned to love the labour, he grew reluctant to dismiss it from his hands, and so arrive at a time when he would no longer be engaged upon it. In the summer of 1822, after the germination of three years, this ceaseless subject of his thoughts attained its maturity, and he regarded it always afterwards with such a fondness as could only spring from the peculiar circumstances of its production. This most extraordinary composition owes to those very circumstances which endeared it to its author, the qualities that render it inaccessible to general comprehension—its profound esthetical purpose, and its excessive technical elaboration. It is perhaps the grandest piece of musical expression the art possesses, and it abounds in passages of such lofty beauty as is nothing short of sublime—the rendering of the "passus" and the "judicare" for example, and the tenor and alto recitatives in the "Agnus;" but its difficulty makes it almost impossible of execution, and its length makes it wholly unavailable for ecclesiastical purposes. Its performance then can only, under the most propitious conditions, take place in the concert-room; and thus, in respect of fitness for its object, it is a colossal failure; but its gigantic merits are equal to its proportions, and it will ever be regarded with reverence, even where it cannot be accepted with faith. In the intervals of the composition of the Mass in D, he wrote the three remarkable pianoforte Sonatas, namely, in E, with its infinitely beautiful melody, varied for the last movement. Op. 109; in A flat, with its passionately declamatory Adagio, Op. 110; and in C minor, a type of rugged grandeur, Op. 111; besides the bagatelles already named, some other trifling pieces, and even some dances for a public garden. In the winter after the completion of the Mass, Beethoven addressed a letter to each of the sovereigns of Europe, offering a copy of this work for the price of fifty ducats; the emperor of Russia and the kings of France, Prussia, and Saxony only, accepted his proposal, and Prince Radziwil and the Frankfort Cecilian society subscribed for copies on the same terms. The greater part of the year 1823 was occupied in the composition of the Choral Symphony, the work which for grandeur, pathos, fantastic vivacity, and the ultimate development of an idea, and, in all these, for intensity and power, better represents the fully-matured genius of the master, in its greatness and its individuality, than any other. This symphony has been more the subject of commentary than all the productions of Beethoven