not for Ernst, nor indeed for any other aspirant; they were alone, Titanic, and intended only to express the 'large utterance of the early gods.'

A true artistic desire animated Ernst, and a feeling for thoroughness dominated all his studies. Even the applause of Paris did not carry conviction to his spirit as to his artistic achievement; so, instead of pluming himself with vainglory, he set about trying to perfect himself in his art. For the next four years he studied hard under the tuition of De Bériot, who in everything but technique was his inferior. For twenty years, dating from 1834, he was one of the most welcome figures at the principal concert-rooms of Europe. His success was undoubted. His style, matured in tone and colouring, was elegant and noble without being exhaustively brilliant. Its quiet freedom from assumption of superiority disarmed rivalry, and enlisted on his side the sympathies of the best class of composers, to whom the loud brilliancy of many of his contemporaries was a source of pain and disgust. It is the merit of Ernst that he did not follow the example set by some leading violinists, who made music subject to virtuosity. In the age of 'salon' music, he is perhaps the only performer who, while leaning to the classic style of the last century, considered his instru

ment rather as an exponent of the composer's music than a mere agent for expressing the technical skill and agility of the performer. When we consider that Ernst maintained this reverent attitude without forfeiting the respect and appreciation of the public, his great service to music will be at once apparent.

After 1844 Ernst lived chiefly in England, where he was much appreciated; and here he was first informed of the perilous state of his health, an advanced stage of spinal disease necessitating the discontinuance of his performances, and demanding his retirement to a more genial climate. In 1857 the first signs of the disease were noticed; and thenceforward its insidious progress was watched with daily increasing anguish by a number of devoted friends. For some time the doomed man rebelled against his fate; and it was only at the peremptory command of the physician that he did not appear in public.

Poor Ernst was called upon to make even a greater sacrifice. He was forbidden to touch his beloved instrument; and words would be inadequate to convey that scene of agony in which he was told that he must be debarred from future association with his violin. For some time the physician hesitated to inflict the

cruellest of blows, but the disease was spreading fast, and its mandate would not be disobeyed. 'You must give up your violin,' was the reluctant order. The sufferer pleaded hard, arguing with the force of conviction that, parted from the friend of his life, the world would be a scene of desolation. But such a plea was vain. The charming and conscientious artist knew it to be vain. The decline of physical strength was so rapid that the player's arm had often sunk to his side powerless to wield the bow which had held entranced the audiences of half the civilised world.

Ernst was never more to wield his beloved bow and sway the hushed audience to joy or sorrow. His last days were spent at Nice, where the calm air and the peaceful beauty of the sea-girt landscape-which makes it a terrestrial paradise to sufferers brought from harsher climes-swayed as in gentle dreams the impressionable soul of the musician. For a brief moment hope returned; it was unreasoning and deceptive. Pain riveted him to his bed; and when all was over, on the 14th October 1865, those who loved him best heaved a deep sigh of relief.

The Élégie will ever form the best monument of Ernst. It is known in every part of the

world; it is played by the finished artist and the stumbling tiro, and, like the music of Mozart, even the clumsiest rendering fails to rob it altogether of its beauties. Vast audiences sit breathless while it takes form under the master-bow of an artist. In our time the immense concert-room of St. James's Hall has been frequently filled to overflowing with an audience that changed from breathless stillness to deafening excitement as the last accords died on the violin of Joachim. Ernst has written other compositions, mostly fantasias on operatic airs, which are not without merit; but long before the Élégie will cease to rank as a stock piece in the répertoire of the performer, his other works will be buried in oblivion.

GOTTSCHALK

1829-1869

‘RAGRANT as the magnolia-blooms of his

native land is the memory of Louis Moreau Gottschalk to all who knew him as a man, while his name as virtuoso and composer is one of the brightest in the coronal of gifted sons adorning the young brow of America. Reared in one of the most beautiful States of the South, the sunny land of Louisiana, his soul drank early of the cup of beauty so lavishly bestowed by Nature in her happiest mood; the long golden days of sapphire skies, luxuriant bloom, and reveille of the song-bird, the night with its silver radiance, its breezy symphonies, and nocturnes of the nightingale, fed the springs of sensuous emotion in the childish heart; while all that was tender, sweet, and pure in human love walked beside him, guiding those infant steps, cherishing the young mind, with that one priceless care, the care of a good and devoted mother, at once playmate, friend, and monitor. Truly an ideal child

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