music:—e.g., symphonies entitled 'The Bear,' 'Maria Theresa,' 'The Schoolmaster'). We now turn to Mozart.

Mozart was a world's-wonder in his boyhood, and neglected—especially at Vienna, and by the court—in his manhood. He has been denominated the most abstract musician that ever lived—a term which is more or less suggestive, if not precise. But, in so far as it points to his being wholly and solely a musician, it points to a defect and hindrance in him. (It has been said, however, that he had a great aptitude also for figures, and would have made no contemptible mathematician. His parents were one of the handsomest couples of their day.) Robert Schumann's wonderful music, so rich in contents (inhaltreich), sprang from a cultivated poet, equally practised with the heart, and soul, and brain, and hand. Wagner's marvellous art is the birth of a similar genius. In short, the age we live in has certainly this advantage: an artist now must be an educated man (in many senses). Haydn and Mozart—who never found time for study—were ill-informed, nay, ignorant men. They knew nothing of the past, little of the present, and less than nothing of the future. Beethoven, I think, certainly did know more—if only a little—and compensated for his deficiency by what alone can compensate—overpowering genius, universally colossal. I do not undertake to affirm that greater culture would have improved Haydn and Mozart, but I throw out the suggestion. Possibly, by expanding their minds, and strengthening their faculties, it might have done so. By reading (not only musical) they might have got new lights—loam and enrichment to their own fertile soil; they might have, at least, widened that channel of inspiration which they were. A man's utterance, whether it be musical or other, is, at bottom, the outcome of the whole man. I know, that, in literature, such "education" as I have glanced at—a discipline and growth all ways, through communion with deeper and higher spirits, and thoughts, and truths, has the effect I speak of. Natural genius is deepened, and enriched, and expanded, and sent up higher; roots and leaves, with increased fruit-capacity, grow together. It may be, therefore, that Haydn and Mozart, minus a Shakespeare's genius (which seems an utter self-justified exception), owe their deficiency in music to their deficiency in culture—in a scientifically comprehensive sense. They were too much musicians. It may be, that the fact of their lack was partly also due to an original inherent non-proclivity to culture. If so, here we have a deeper explanation; the bare fact is seen to be the symptom of a radical cause. But Beethoven was a born thinker: remember his flashes of remark:—"Read Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' 'So knocketh Fate at the portals.' 'I have another law for myself than Kant's "Categorical Imperative."' 'Better water from my body than from my pen.'" He was a born thinker; and in this fact we have the deeper explanation of his mighty music. Do we not see the fact stamped on his very brows! the very thrones of concentrated thought,—as the deep-set eyes full of dusky fire in the lion-like head are the homes of intense feeling, such as, possibly, no man equalled. The comparison, let alone the coupling, of Mozart with Shakespeare, I, for one, cannot for a moment away with; in fact, am inclined to cry with that author who could not tolerate a similar bracketing of Turner with Shakespeare, "Bah!" There is a power, a depth, a seraphic wisdom of inspiration and universal view, an oracular utterance and constructive power from within (the nearest approach to the Divine modus operandi itself) in Shakespeare which Mozart can lay no proper claim to. The theory which would make his "Don Juan" characters (forsooth!) display this similar power—in the organic dramatic verisimilitude of the music—I cannot endorse. Only a very long way off is your Mozart like Shakespeare, with whom, properly, no one can measure, or be likened. He stands alone, a phenomenal unique. Such divine propriety he had! the intellect of an archangel; and a prolonged moulding-from-within power from Nature. Mozart had a lovely, sometimes heavenly, profuse—not incontinent—gift of melody, which is wont, however, to tire (unlike Beethoven's), by being too Mozartish; a marvellous genius for counterpoint; and a beautiful instinct for harmony and form. He was, par excellence, amiable; his music is loveable. He shines like the sun on a mild spring day. That he has serenity, as Shakespeare had, of course is patent and cardinal; but that it is Shakespeare's serenity I must beg to dispute. Shakespeare's is profound as the centre of the sun; Mozart's is rather diffusive than profound or moonlike. Shakespeare's is that of a god-like man; Mozart's that of an "eternal child." Mozart's is that of the Mediterranean; Shakespeare's of the whole ocean. And of Shakespeare—not of Mozart (according to our instinct)—may it be so eloquently asserted, "his serenity is that of one" (a Potente, as Dante says) "who had unconsciously fought out beforehand all the doubts and difficulties, and put them to flight." Mozart is supposed to have been "light o' love," if not fond of wine too. To be "light o' love" goes very well with the composer of "Don Juan," but I do not think anybody ever charged it on the inspirer of the passionate grandeur of the Countess Guicciardi sonata; of the heroic, C minor and other symphonies. Had he been so, we should have had such strains of remorse wailing up. Do we find them in Mozart? I trow not!—"Thy terrible beauty, Remorse, shining up from the depths of pain!" Mozart is cheerful, beautiful, at times vigorous; but surely somewhat light—a mountain lake with fleecy clouds, not the sea, with its sunsets and thunders. Not his serenity, but Beethoven's rather, presupposes, like the sun of summer, and calm heart of nature, all the storms fought out(?) Was there, as in Beethoven, a soul of earnestness in him? Had he aim, consciously, or unconsciously? Does he speak from inspired depths, almost painful? Had he a glimmering of atheism? Did he ever clutch at the vanishing skirts of the Almighty? Could he kill himself almost, to be sure of immortality? So far from thinking he had thought and fought all these things out, consciously or unconsciously, we feel that he had no experience of them—could not have—and so was for ever an incomplete man. "He knew not ye, ye mighty powers." Sunshine he can give us; yes, but sunshine and thunderglooms (say, tropical)—roar of ocean, and spasm of lightning—no. His best symphonies will not strictly compare with Beethoven's best; his sonatas still less. And it is no very adventurous prediction (however horrifying to sundry), that his "Don Juan"—"the first opera in the world"(!), with its contemptible trash for libretto, and meagre musical constituents, will hide its diminished head more and more, till it disappear. Mozart, says the German essayist, means operas rather than symphonies: well, and what did he make of them? At this time of day, it is simply inconceivable how any intelligent man—let alone a tone-poet—could set trash by the hour or week together. It has become almost a trite idea now, that poetry is the soul of music: caeteris paribus, in proportion as the word is divine, so will the flesh be, which it takes unto itself and moulds from within, in which it eventuates. How great by comparison is Handel here! We have but to think of his words—"Hallelujah! Lord God Omnipotent! He shall reign for ever and ever, Amen!" to explain why we may search Mozart in vain for a Hallelujah Chorus, that temple of immortality! Beethoven, indefinitely higher and greater than Mozart, did have a notion of the exigency of the word—he spent hours and hours