The latter appears to have been a man of vacillating, inert temperament, gifted with a good voice and artistic sensibility, but not capable of any sustained effort. At the age of twenty-four we find him filling the post of Tenor in the Electoral Chapel with the miserable stipend of one hundred thalers, and not distinguished in any way, unless we except his ingenuity in spelling or misspelling his own name in the petitions which he from time to time addressed to the Elector for an increase of salary. In these he calls himself _Bethoven_, _Betthoven_, _Bethof_, _Biethoffen_; but this instance does not warrant us in concluding that he was a man of no education whatever, for the orthography even of those who considered themselves scholars was at that time very erratic. At the age of twenty-seven, on an income not much larger than that just mentioned, Johann van Beethoven took unto himself a wife. The entry in the register of the parish of St. Remigius runs thus:-- "Copulavi-- "Nov. 12, 1767. "JOHANNEM VAN BEETHOVEN, filium legitimum LUDOVICI VAN BEETHOVEN et MARIÆ JOSEPHÆ POLL, Et MARIAM MAGDALENAM KEFERICH, viduam LEYM, ex Ehrenbreitstein, filiam HENRICI KEFERICH et ANNÆ MARIÆ WESTROFFS." The object of his choice was a young widow, Maria Magdalena, daughter of the head cook at the castle of Ehrenbreitstein. Her first husband, Johann Leym, one of the _valets de chambre_ to the Elector of Treves, had left her a widow at the age of nineteen. The fruit of this plebeian union between the tenor singer of the Electoral Chapel and the daughter of the head cook to his Grace the Archbishop of Treves was the great maestro. What a downfall must the discovery of this fact have been to the numerous Viennese admirers of Beethoven, who for long persisted in attributing to him a noble origin, confounding the Flemish particle _van_ with the aristocratic _von_! It was impossible, they thought, that Beethoven's undoubted aristocratic leanings could be compatible with so humble a parentage. Hence the absurd fable, promulgated by Fayolle and Choron, which represented him as a natural son of Frederic II., King of Prussia, which was indignantly repudiated by Beethoven himself. In general careless of his own reputation, he could not bear that the slightest breath of slander should touch his mother; and in a letter addressed to Wegeler begged him to "make known to the world the honour of his parents, particularly of his mother." Her memory was always regarded by him with the deepest tenderness, and he was wont to speak lovingly of the "great patience she had with his waywardness." We cannot conclude this short sketch better than by presenting the reader with Thayer's picturesque description of Bonn, as it must have appeared in the eyes of the young Beethoven.