exhibit surprising
power, a marvellous comprehension of the deeper feelings in life, and the
influences of nature, both human and physical. He wrote with the deepest
earnestness, alike in the passion and the repose of his music, and he
invested it also with a genial humor as well as with the highest
expression of pathos. His works are epic in style. He was the great
tone-poet of music. His subjects were always lofty and dignified, and to
their treatment he brought not only a profound knowledge of musical
technicality, but intense sympathy with the innermost feelings of human
nature, for he was a humanitarian in the broadest sense. By the common
consent of the musical world he stands at the head of all composers since
his time, and has always been their guide and inspiration. He died March
26, 1827, in the midst of a raging thunder-storm,--one of his latest
utterances being a recognition of the "divine spark" in Schubert's music.

The Ruins of Athens.

The most important compositions by Beethoven in 1811 were the music to
two dramatic works written by the poet Kotzebue to celebrate the opening
of the new theatre at Pesth, Hungary. One of these was a prologue in one
act with overture and choruses, entitled "Koenig Stephan,[11] Ungarn's
erster Wohlthaeter" ("King Stephen, Hungary's first Benefactor"); the
other, an allegorical sketch, called "The Ruins of Athens," the subject
of which is thus concisely stated by Macfarren:--

"Minerva has been since the golden age of Grecian art, the glorious
epoch of Grecian liberty, for some or other important offence against
the Olympian tribunal, the particulars of which I am unable to furnish,
fettered with chains of heaven-wrought adamant by the omnipotent
thunderer within a rock impenetrable alike to the aspirations of man
and to the intelligence of the goddess, a rock through which neither
his spirit of inquiry could approach, nor her wisdom diffuse itself
upon the world. The period of vengeance is past; Jove relents, and the
captive deity is enfranchised. The first steps of her freedom naturally
lead Minerva to the scene of her ancient greatness. She finds Athens,
her Athens, her especially beloved and most carefully cherished city,
in ruins, the descendants of her fostered people enslaved to a
barbarous and fanatic race; the trophies of her former splendor, the
wrecks of that art which is the example and the regret of all