laughter to a peerage was honoured _above_ those whose brains and whose
industry were the means of promoting the comfort of their fellow men.
Believe me, my young friends, the highest honour of earth, is the honour
of independence, and the highest nobility, _to be the Rodolph of your
own fortune, and a benefactor to mankind_.

Beethoven died 26th March, 1827, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
Although his warmth of temper, extreme frankness and singularity of
manners, his little reserve in judging of people, and above all, that
deplorable calamity--the greatest which can befall a man of his
profession--his extreme deafness, seemed little calculated to endear him
to the true admirers of his genius. Still, notwithstanding his foibles,
which much more frequently belong to great than to ordinary men, his
character as a man and as a citizen ranked deservedly high. Although his
originality induced him to deviate from ordinary rules, in the little
affairs of common life, yet his high feeling of honour and right
produced a rectitude in his moral conduct, which ensured to him the
esteem of every honourable man.

Beethoven--the master spirit of his age--
Has passed away to his eternal rest,
His name belongs to history's page,
Enrolled with men the noblest and the best.

We to whom it was not given to view
His living lineaments with wond'ring eye,
May in his tones behold him pictured true
In breathing colours that can never die.

For he could paint in tones of magic force
The moody passions of the varying soul;
Now winding round the heart with playful course;
Now storming all the breast with wild control.

Forthdrawing from his unexhausted store,
'Twas his to bid the burden'd heart o'erflow,
Infusing joys it never knew before,
And melting it with soft luxuriant woe!

He liveth! It is wrong to say he's dead--
The sun, tho' smoking in the fading west,
Again shall issue from his morning bed,
Like a young giant vigorous from his rest.

He lives! for that is truly living when
Our fame is a bequest from mind to mind,
His life is in the breathing hearts of men,
Transmitted to the latest of his kind.

NOTES.

_Note on Page 19._

The earliest copy of the tune, as far as is known, stands in a Genevan
edition of a portion of the English Psalter, preserved as an article of
rare value in the library of St. Paul's Cathedra