How "flat, stale, and unprofitable" must everything in Bonn have appeared to our Beethoven after the charms of Vienna--charms real in themselves, and surrounded by the ideal nimbus of his fresh young hopes and strivings! The desolate, motherless home, his neglected orphan brothers, his drunken father, the weary round of teaching,--it was no light task for an impetuous, ardent genius to lift; but it had to be faced, and with a noble self-sacrifice he entered on the dreary path before him. He had his reward--the very occupation which he disliked more than any other, opened up to him a friendship which secured to him more peace and happiness than he had yet known, and whose influence was potent throughout his whole life--that, namely, with the family Von Breuning. Madame von Breuning was a widow; her husband, a state councillor and a member of one of the best families in Bonn, had perished in the attempt to rescue the Electoral Archives from a fire that had broken out in the palace, and since this calamity she had lived quietly with her brother, the canon and scholar, Abraham v. Keferich, solely engaged in the education of her children. These were four in number: three boys--Christoph, Stephan, and Lenz; and one girl--Eleanore. It appears that Beethoven (who was about four years older than Stephan) was receiving violin lessons at the same time with the latter from Franz Ries; and Stephan, struck, no doubt, with the genius of his fellow-pupil, managed to get him introduced to his mother's house in the capacity of pianoforte teacher to the little Lenz. Madame von Breuning was not slow to perceive the extraordinary gifts of her son's new acquaintance; and learning incidentally, with her woman's tact, the sad state of matters at home, opened her heart as well as her house to the motherless boy. He soon became one of the family, and used to spend the greater part of the day and often the night with his new friends. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of this friendship to the young man. What a contrast to his own neglected home did the well-ordered house of Madame v. Breuning present! Now for the first time he was admitted to mix on equal terms with people of culture; here he first enjoyed the refining influence of female society (did any remembrance of Leonore suggest his ideal heroine?); and here also he first became acquainted with the literature of his own and other countries.