A French artist, Paul Leyendecker, has painted the master thus at work amid nature's peace. Beethoven is sitting on the outskirts of a wood near his native city of Bonn, absorbed in composition. A funeral procession is coming up the road, with the coffin borne upon the shoulders of the mourners, and preceded by the priest, who recognises the composer and bids the choristers cease chanting for a while in order not to disturb his labours. Turning from the master at work in the open air to him at home, we find that Carl Schloesser, a German painter long settled in London, exhibited at the Royal Academy, a few years ago, a striking picture showing Beethoven at the piano absorbed in composition, amid a litter of manuscripts and music-sheets. It was thus he must have looked when Weber called upon him in 1823. [Illustration: Beethoven at Bonn. From painting by Paul Leyendecker.] "All lay in the wildest disorder--music, money, clothing, on the floor--linen from the wash upon the dirty bed--broken coffee-cups upon the table. The open pianoforte was covered thickly with dust. Beethoven entered to greet his visitors. Benedict has thus described him: 'Just so must have looked Lear, or one of Ossian's bards. His thick gray hair was flung upwards, and disclosed the sanctuary of his lofty vaulted forehead. His nose was square, like that of a lion; his chin broad, with those remarkable folds which all his portraits show; his jaws formed as if purposely to crack the hardest nuts; his mouth noble and soft. Over the broad face, seamed with scars from the smallpox, was spread a dark redness. From under the thick, closely compressed eyebrows gleamed a pair of small flashing eyes. The square, broad form of a Cyclops was wrapped in a shabby dressing-gown, much torn about the sleeves.' Beethoven recognised Weber without a word, embraced him energetically, shouting out, 'There you are, my boy; you are a devil of a fellow! God bless you!' handed him at once his famous tablets, then pushed a heap of music from the old sofa, threw himself upon it, and, during a flow of conversation, commenced dressing himself to go out. Beethoven began with a string of complaints about his own position; about the theatres, the public, the Italians, the talk of the day, and, more especially, about his own ungrateful nephew. Weber, who was nervous and agitated, counselled him to tear himself from Vienna, and to take a journey through Germany to convince himself of the world's judgment of him, and more especially to go to England, where his works were more reverenced than in any other country. 'Too late! too late!' cried Beethoven, making the pantomime of playing on the piano, and shaking his head sadly. Then he seized on Weber's arm, and dragged him away to the Sauerhof, where he was wont to dine. 'Here,' wrote Weber afterward, 'we dined together in the happiest mood. The rough repulsive man paid me as much attention as if I were a lady to