humor, and during the thunder of the cannons called out to his servants: "Children, don't be frightened; no harm can happen to you while Haydn is by!" He was now no longer able to compose, and to his last unfinished quartette he added a few bars of "Der Greis," as a conclusion: "Hin ist alle meine Kraft: Alt und schwach bin ich. --JOSEPH HAYDN." "Gone is all my strength: old and weak am I." And these lines he caused to be engraved, and sent on a card to the friends who visited him. The end was indeed now near. On May 26, 1809, he had his servants gathered round him for the last adieus; then, by his desire, he was carried to the piano, where he played three times over the "Emperor's Hymn," composed by him. Then he was taken to his bed, where five days afterward he died. BEETHOVEN By C. E. BOURNE (1770-1827) [Illustration: Beethoven.] In one of his letters to Frau von Streicher, at Baden, Beethoven writes: "When you visit the ancient ruins, do not forget that Beethoven has often lingered there; when you stray through the silent pine-forests, do not forget that Beethoven often wrote poetry there, or, as it is termed, composed." He was always fond of claiming the title "Ton-dichter, poet in music;" and surely of all the great geniuses who have walked the earth, to none can the glorious name of "poet" more truly be given than to Ludwig von Beethoven. He was born at Bonn, on December 17, 1770. His father, Johann von Beethoven, was a tenor singer in the Electoral Chapel of the Archbishop of Cologne, at Bonn, and his mother, Maria Magdalena, was a daughter of the head cook at the castle of Ehrenbreitstein. The Beethoven family originally came from Louvain, in Belgium; but the composer's grandfather had settled in Bonn, first as a singer, and afterward as Capellmeister to the court. Musicians were not held of much account in those days, and the marriage of a singer with the daughter of a cook was not at all considered a mésalliance. Johann was a sad drunken scapegrace, and his poor wife, in bringing up her family upon the small portion of his earnings which she could save from being squandered at the tavern, had a pitiably hard and long struggling life of it.