turbed by the vexations attending his connection with the Paganini Casino at Paris. He had joined a syndicate for the building of this place, which was designed for gambling purposes under the veil of a music-hall. The Government refused a licence, and, to save what could be saved from the large sums of money he had invested in the undertaking, Paganini started for Paris. He was in very bad health at starting, and arrived at Marseilles more dead than alive. Here he received the news that the Casino syndicate was declared bankrupt, and that he had been condemned to pay a fine of fifty thousand francs, the court refusing to hear any defence. The loss of his money, added to his intense suffering from laryngeal phthisis, hastened the end. He made an effort to reach Genoa, but at Nice he took to his bed-from which he was never to rise again. In an obscure lodging, away from the world which he had swayed into storms of opposition and billows of tumultuous enthusiasm, the great violinist passed his last days alone. His violin, in which slumbered a world of vision and ideal beauty, tempests of passionate melody, and the arcana of the ideal life which is embodied in music, to the unravelling and unsealing of which he alone held the key,

remained untouched, its myriads of weird spirits and celestial harmonies to be evoked no more for ever! Yes: once more he filled the air with its pathos and passion-once only. The dying man was thinking of a former meeting with Byron; and thus the great English poet, whose glowing verse, impregnated with a wild and wayward cynicism, still swells greatest among his contemporaries, was blended in the last moments of the great king of the violin in a mood that reflects a tinge of tender lustre over the fame of both. O the littleness of life!-so small in its best fulfilment; too small to admit of bitterness and envy. This admission embodied a remark of Byron's, which came floating back upon the memory, pained and pleased in that moment of attenuation and physical decrepitude; and then, for the last time, the divine strains of the violin filled the sick-room, and were wafted out, bearing the best and highest mood of Paganini's sombre spirit, across the lovely Italian landscape.

Paganini died a few days later, on May 27th, 1840. The bulk of his property was bequeathed to his son Achille, the offspring of a tie formed with the actress Bianchi, to whom was left a pittance of 1200 francs out of a fortune estimated at two million francs.

Whatever divergence of opinion may exist as to the merits and defects of this singular and gifted man, there can only be one opinion as to his place among musicians. He is a fixed star in the musical firmament; alike dazzling, brilliant, and glowing. While there is much to justify the idea that he owes his unique position to the halo cast by tradition over his extraordinary career, it is hardly possible to hope that he can have a legitimate successor. instrument is now rendered subservient to the work of the great composer, and the violinist. now most commands interest and respect, as well as applause, who is the most faithful interpreter. Paganini stands alone in a world of his own, the one name to associate with all the marvels of the violin.

The

SPO

SPOHR

1784-1859

POHR lived a life of calm serenity, marked by as many of the red-letter days of triumphant success as ever fell to the fortunate career in music. Readers who are familiar with the picture of his face have doubtless remarked its expression of quiet repose, unruffled by perplexity, doubt, or stress of care. It is a very fine face, pleasing in a high degree; every lineament expressing intellectual superiority, and leaving an impression on the observer of an absorbed, even exalted, nature, which has happily been neither suppressed nor distorted by circumstances, but has flowed on at an equable pace, through its due channel, into the broad ocean of a full life of ample work and adequate satisfactions; indeed a noble face, indicating a lofty type of manly beauty, neither furrowed by irregular or inordinate passions nor marred by moral weakness and impotence of will. The front of Jove himself is expressed

in the expansive forehead, massive, high, and broad; the speaking eyes that glance steadfastly and clearly under the finely pencilled arches of the eyebrows, which add a new grace to their lustrous fire; the long, straight nose with sharply curved nostrils, imperial with the pride of sensibility and spiritual power; the firm, handsome mouth; and the powerful chin, with its strong outlines melted into the utter grace of oval curves. In its calmness and repose, in its subdued strength and pervading serenity, it is the picture of the man's life in little.

Ludwig (or Louis) Spohr, the son of a physician, was born at Brunswick on April 25th, 1784. Two years after his birth his parents removed to Seesen, where his early years were passed. Like all refined German homes, the family circle at Seesen was enlivened with music, and musical taste and culture were among the surroundings of young Ludwig's cradle. It soon became to him a passionate playmate, with whom he had such insatiable delight that his parents took counsel together, with the result that he was sent to Brunswick to pursue the study of the violin under Maucourt, an excellent violinist of capacity and intelligence in the orchestra there. He made rapid progress, and at twelve years of age played an original com