at Holz's request appointed him
his biographer as follows:

VIENNA, _Aug. 30, 1826_.
I am happy to give my friend, Karl Holz, the testimonial he
desires, namely,--that I consider him well qualified to write my
biography if indeed, I may presume to think this will be desired. I
place the utmost confidence in his faithfully transmitting to
posterity what I have imparted to him for this purpose.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

Holz, however, was not equal to the requirements, and this duty was
relegated to Schindler.

A curious change affected Beethoven in his later years on the subject of
money. It was not avarice, that "good old-gentlemanly vice" of Byron's
which influenced him, but it resembled it at times. With his nephew as
the inciting cause, money, to which he had hitherto been indifferent,
now assumed a new value to him. This is evidenced by absurd economies
(alternated it is true by occasional extravagances), which are a feature
of this time. The diminution of his pension, the nature of the
compositions of these years from which for the most part no money was
available, the cessation of his teaching (Von Frimmel mentions a pupil,
Hirsch, who had a few lessons from him in 1817, which was probably the
last of Beethoven's sporadic attempts in this direction, as his deafness
must have made teaching extremely difficult), were all factors which
rendered money a scarce article with him. In the same ratio in which his
income had been diminished, his expenses were increased by the
maintenance and education of his nephew, which in large part was borne
by Beethoven.

This new estimate of the value of money was strengthened by the
conviction that Karl would never do anything for himself, and that
provision must be made for his future. To this must be attributed his
solicitude for money which is constantly in evidence in his letters to
his friends, as well as to his publishers, in which latter the
disposition to drive a good bargain comes to the fore now for the first
time. His letters to Ries are full of the subject of making money. "Waere
ich nicht noch immer der arme Beethoven," he says with unconscious
humor, in one of the letters. "If I could but get to London, what would
I not write for the Philharmonic Society. If it please God to restore my
health, which is already improved, I may yet avail myself of