is entry. In 1825
his father took him to Paris to consult Cherubini, as to his future.
Cherubini offered to take him as a pupil, but his father preferred to bring
him up in the musical atmosphere of his own home. There the boy perfected
himself as a piano player and wrote a host of early compositions. The
overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was written in 1826, when
Mendelssohn was but seventeen years old. Two years later his first opera,
"The Marriage of Camecho," was given at the Berlin Opera. In Berlin,
Mendelssohn became the leading figure in the propaganda for the music of
Bach. Having undertaken a journey to England, at the suggestion of
Moscheles, he gave a series of concerts there, after which he travelled
throughout Europe. It was at this time that he wrote his "Songs Without
Words," and composed the overture, "A Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage."
After filling a musical directorship at Duesseldorf, he was summoned to
conduct the orchestra of the Gewandhaus there. This proved an important
turn in his career. In 1841, Frederick William IV. of Prussia invited him
to Berlin, where he organized the famous Cathedral choir. Returning to
Leipzig, he founded the musical conservatory in that city. The sudden death
of his favorite sister, Fannie, gave him such a shock that he died within a
few months after her. Mendelssohn exerted little influence as an operatic
composer, but achieved the highest rank by such vocal compositions as the
oratorios "St. Paul" and "Elijah," and some of his beautiful songs, which
have become folksongs. Of his orchestral pieces, the most famous are his
concert overtures, such as that of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," or "Ruy
Blas," and his "Funeral March." The most celebrated of his piano pieces are
the popular "Songs Without Words," the "Wedding March" and the brilliant
"Rondo Capriccioso."

[Sidenote: Death of Marilhat]

[Sidenote: Gautier on Marilhat]

By the death of Prosper Marilhat, a young artist of great promise was lost
to France. But a few years before, Marilhat sent no less than eight
masterpieces to the Salon, but they were received so coldly that the young
artist fell into a state from which death was a happy deliverance.
Theophile Gautier wrote of him, "That exhibition was Marilhat's swan song,
and the works he sent were eight diamonds." After Marilhat's death, some of
his unfinished paintings commanded great prices. Thus his "Entrance to
Jerusalem," at the Wertheimer sale at