Meanwhile, near the end of 1840, he was prevailed on to accept a year's engagement at Berlin, and lend his labor and his genius to certain high artistic schemes of king Frederick William IV. Taking leave of Leipsic with a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion Music, he became Kapellmeister to the King. The first fruit of that was his noble music to the _Antigone_, and afterwards the _Œdipus Coloneus_ of Sophocles; and in another vein, the _Athalie_ of Racine. It was also by the king's request that he wrote the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ music, into which the early overture fitted as if pre-ordained, and his both beautiful and wildly melodramatic setting of Goethe's _Walpurgisnacht_. Not far from the same time he was moved to make an overture, more dramatic than any of his early ones, to _Ruy Blas_. [Illustration: MENDELSSOHN ON HIS DEATH-BED From an English engraving.] On his last return from England a shadow came over that serene and happy life. He met the sudden news of his sister Fanny's death, and with a cry fell unconscious to the ground. He sought relief and rest in Switzerland that summer, painting in water-colors, and playing the organ all alone in a little village church--what a touching picture his letters give of it! His own hour was near at hand. A trouble in his head grew worse. He died in the evening of Thursday, Nov. 4, 1847. He was mourned by all Europe. In Leipsic it was as if the most beloved and honored, the soul and centre of all their higher life and aspiration, were withdrawn. Memorial concerts were organized in London, Manchester and Birmingham, even in Paris. To this day among English music-lovers Mendelssohn has been a name to conjure by, adopted as their own like Handel. Mendelssohn scholarships, busts, statues, became frequent. And a commission was appointed to publish selections from the mass of works he left in manuscript; nor could they keep pace with the impatient, almost angry outcry (at least in England) for every scrap of manuscript withheld.