The circumstance which more than any other casts a gloom over the master's last days is, that he was doomed (apparently) to outlive his fame, and to have the inexpressible mortification of witnessing that rupture in the musical world which has lasted down to our days, and will probably never be healed, viz., the separation of the classical from the so-called romantic school. Hitherto, the followers of Art had been united; naturally, individual tastes and predilections had occasionally predominated--some admiring one master and some another,--but on the whole, the lovers of music had been unanimous in their adherence to the pure and good. With the appearance of Rossini (that clever scene-painter, as Beethoven called him), this state of affairs underwent a complete revolution. His gay, light-hearted melodies, extravagant roulades, and inexhaustible vivacity took the public by storm--Beethoven and his immortal masterpieces were forgotten. And yet, perhaps, this is only what might have been expected,--the divine in Art is not for all, nor are all for the divine. Beethoven might have known, like Goethe, that he was too profound ever to be popular in a wide sense. The mass of mankind look upon Art simply as a means of relaxation. So, indeed, it ought to be to all; but never should it stop there. Art, in its highest and best forms, has power not only to provide the weary and careworn with temporary self-forgetfulness, and to dissipate grief, but--and herein lies its true, its God-given strength--to renew the energies and brace the mind for higher and nobler efforts in the future. Whenever it stops short of this, satisfied with fulfilling its first and lower function, there is developed a tendency to abdicate its real position, and to degenerate into the mere panderer to man's follies, to his vices. Who could have felt this more keenly than Beethoven? Not the mere loss of his own popularity was it that made him turn away so deeply wounded from grand displays in which snatches of his own works were performed, along with meaningless arias, and shallow, noisy overtures of the new Italian school. So deeply did he take the change to heart, that he resolved to have his Mass in D and the Ninth Symphony performed for the first time in Berlin. The announcement of this intention produced a warm remonstrance (in the form of an Address) from his attached little circle of friends; and the master, touched by the feeling which called out this manifestation, was induced to forego his determination, and to consent to the two works being brought out in Vienna, provided a hall suitable for the purpose could be obtained.