n's work at composition. The death of
a friend who had assisted the family with money gifts inspired him to
write a cantata in his honour; but though it was performed at the
funeral, no trace exists for us of this little outcome of gratitude on
Beethoven's part.

Ludwig was now ten years old, and in the winter of 1781 he made his
first essay at bread-winning for the family. The state of things at
home was wretched in the extreme, and the hopelessness of looking to
the father to retrieve the condition into which they had fallen
decided Ludwig's mother upon undertaking a tour through Holland with
the boy, in the hope that his playing at the houses of the rich might
bring in money. We may well believe that sheer necessity alone
impelled the gentle, ailing woman to such a step. Her faith in her
son's powers was evidently of a higher order than that of Johann, and
she must have seen that this exhibition of his talents at so early an
age not only implied an interruption to his studies, but also, to some
extent, a debasing of the art which she felt that he loved for its own
sake. The tour produced money--that chiefest need of the moment--and,
so far, it was a success; but Ludwig himself did not carry away any
pleasing recollections of his visit. 'The Dutch are very stingy, and I
shall take care not to trouble them again,' he afterwards remarked to
a friend; and there was no repetition of the experiment.

In the following year a notice appeared in _Cramer's Magazine_,
calling the attention of music-lovers to a young player who, though
not more than eleven years old, could play with force and finish, read
well at sight, and--most remarkable of all--play the greater part of
Bach's 'Wohltemperirte Klavier' (Well-tempered Clavier), 'a feat,'
declared the writer, 'which will be understood by the initiated.'
'This young genius,' the article went on to say, 'deserves some
assistance that he may travel. If he goes on as he has begun, he will
certainly become a second Mozart.'

The writer of this notice was Christian Neefe, and the subject of his
praise was none other than his pupil, Ludwig Beethoven. That the boy
should have mastered a work of such extraordinary difficulty as Bach's
collection of preludes and fugues may well have excited the
astonishment of his friend and teacher, whose praise was thus
deservedly given. But Neefe's confidence in his pupil's abilities was
shown in a more substantial manner during this same year. Van