fireworks and to the music of singing and instruments. All Cologne was assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his frantic admirers to his hotel. In common with all other great musicians, Liszt has throughout life been a reverential admirer of the genius of Beethoven, an isolated force in music without peer or parallel. In his later years Liszt bitterly reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth, he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas. Many interesting facts in Liszt's life connect themselves, directly or indirectly, with Beethoven. Among these is worthy of mention our artist's part in the Beethoven festival at Bonn in 1845, organized to celebrate the erection of a colossal bronze statue. The enterprise had been languishing for a long time, when Liszt promptly declared he would make up the deficiency single-handed, and this he did with great celerity. In an incredibly short time the money was raised, and the commission put in the hands of the sculptor Hilbnel, of Dresden, one of the foremost artists of Germany. The programme for the celebration was drawn up by Liszt and Dr. Spohr, who were to be the joint conductors of the festival music. A thousand difficulties intervened to embarrass the organization of the affair, the jealousies of prominent singers, who revolted against the self-effacement they would needs undergo, a certain truly German parsimony in raising the money for the expenses, and the envious littleness of certain great composers and musicians, who feared that Liszt would reap too much glory from the prominence of the part he had taken in the affair, But Liszt's energy had surmounted all these obstacles, when finally, only a month before the festival, which was to take place in August, it was discovered that there was no suitable Pesthalle in Bonn. The committee said, "What if the affair should not pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?" Liszt promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he himself would pay the cost of the building. The architect of the Cologne Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground selected, the trees grubbed up, timber fished up from one of the great Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's palace. The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace, and the musical celebration thereof in August, 1845, one of the most interesting events of its kind that ever occurred, must be, for the most part, attributed to the energy and munificence of Franz Liszt. Great personages were present from all parts of Europe, among them King William of Prussia and Queen Victoria of England. Henry Chorley, who has given a pretty full description of the festival, says that Liszt's performance of Beethoven's concerto in E flat was the crowning glory of the festival, in spite of the richness and beauty of the rest of the programme.