ld? Oh not he!
The music stirs in him, like wind through a tree.

"Mark that cripple, who leans on his crutch, like a tower
That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour!
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

"Now coaches and chariots roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream;
They are deaf to your murmurs--they care not for you,
Nor what ye plying, nor what ye pursue!

"He stands, backed by the wall--he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in
From the old and the young--from the poorest; and there--
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare!

"Oh! blest are the hearers! and proud be the hand
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band!
I'm glad for him, blind as he is! All the while,
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile."

But why should I occupy your time by quotations from celebrated poets or
prose writers, to prove the influence of music, when I have it in my
power to verify the saying of that eminent composer whose life I have
undertaken to sketch?

"The effect of music on a man should be to strike fire from his soul."

(SONATA PATHETIQUE.)

Ludwig Von Beethoven was born on the 17th December, 1770, at Bonn. His
father and grandfather were both musicians by profession. The former
occupied the situation of principal vocal tenor, and the latter that of
first bass singer in the chapel of the Elector of Cologne.

From the earliest age Beethoven evinced a disposition for music; or, in
other words, he learnt the language of music and his mother tongue both
at the same time; and as modulated sounds seldom fail to make a deep
impression on a young, fervid mind, when they are almost constantly
presented to it, as was the case in the present instance, he soon
acquired, and as speedily manifested, a taste for the art of which they
are the foundation.

His father began to instruct him when he was only in his fifth year. An
anecdote is told of his early performances, which corroborates what I
have already said on the influence of music. It is said that, whenever
little Ludwig was playing in his closet on the violin, a spider would
let itself down from the ceiling and alight upon the instrument. The
story, I am sorry, goes on to say that his mother one day, discovering
her so