h memorial of a father who had lived so lively a life. When at last
the work was begun and done, it was a miracle of impartiality, of
frankness which seems complete, of sins confessed and expiated in their
confession, and of trenchant characterisation, which one will hardly
find surpassed outside of Dickens.

The Von Webers are the most numerous musical dynasty after the Bachs. We
have already seen something of the fortunes of the family into which
Mozart married. The father of Mozart's wife was the older brother of
Franz Anton von Weber, father of Carl Maria. This Franz Anton was a
strange mixture of stalwart and shiftless qualities. He gave up his
orchestral position to fight against Frederick the Great, and brought
home a red badge of courage. It is wonderful, by the way, how many
musicians have earned distinction as soldiers--what, indeed, would the
soldiers do without music?

Later Franz Anton entered civil service, and succeeded to the position
of Court Financial-Councillor Fumetti, and married his beautiful
daughter, Maria Anna. But Franz Anton was so rabid a fiddler that he
used to be seen playing his violin in public places, followed by his
large family of children, or even sawing away in the open fields, to the
neglect of his work and finally the loss of his position. Thereupon he
decided that his large family should help in its own support, and
dragged them one and all upon the stage. The proud mother saw her
fortune squandered, and her pride massacred. She died some years later.
Franz Anton's heart was too industrious to remain idle long, and, though
he was now fifty years of age, he somehow won the hand of Genofeva von
Brenner, who was only sixteen years old. It is gratuitous to say that
the young girl was not happy. In 1786 she bore him the child who was to
realise the father's one great and vicarious ambition: to bring a
musical genius into the world.

While Carl Maria von Weber was still a babe, Franz Anton started once
more after the will-o'-the-wisp of theatrical fame, with his "Weber's
Company of Comedians." Genofeva, sickly and melancholy, dragged herself
about with the troupe until Carl Maria was ten years old, when her
health gave way, and the travel was discontinued. Poverty and
consumption ended her days two years later. Within a year Franz Anton
was betrothed to a widow, whom, strange to say, he never married.

Again Franz Anton, the Bedouin that he was, dragged his son back into
the nomad l