An eminent virtuoso recently declared to me that he should be more or less uncomfortable in dining alone with Beethoven; "but with 'Father Bach,' how different! With him I see myself perfectly at home, pipe in mouth, elbows upon the table; chatting informally about a thousand and one interesting things, over a big stein of beer, as in the good old days." How true! Bach was a good citizen, an admirable father, as M. Prudhomme would say, a devoted friend; socially affable, and possessed of a rare artistic modesty. Were he asked how he had attained such heights, he would answer: "I was obliged to work; whoever will strive as I did, will succeed as well." He availed himself of every opportunity to become familiar with the works of other composers; Händel he esteemed highly, Couperin interested him; when accorded three weeks' leave that he might hear Buxtehude, Bach so far forgot himself as to allow three months to go by while listening, from a secluded corner of the church, to the justly celebrated organist of St. Mary's in Lübeck. Bach was a great and good man; never did a more marvellous mechanism perform the functions of a human brain; never has been known a mind that was sounder, better balanced, contained in a more robust body; never were a musician's nerves better controlled. It required the atrocious harmonizations of Görner to cause Bach one day to turn upon him and hurl his wig at the face of the poor accompanist: "_Sie sind ein Schuster_" (You are a bungler)! These fits of anger were, however, rare, despite the astonishing vitality of his constitution; for Bach was naturally patient and kind-hearted. Note him with his pupils; during the first year nothing but exercises--trills, scales, passages in thirds and sixths, practice in changing fingers--work of every description to insure the equability of the hand. He supervised everything, devoting the minutest attention to the clearness and precision of the touch. If one pupil or the other became discouraged, he good-naturedly wrote little pieces containing in a disguised form the difficulties to be surmounted. When Bach became organist of the New Church in Arnstadt--he was very young, but eighteen years of age--he had studied the compositions and methods of the following celebrated clavecinists of his time: FROBERGER (1615[?]-1667), a _protégé_ of Emperor Ferdinand III., by whom he had been sent, in early life, to study with Frescobaldi in Rome. FISCHER, _Capellmeister_ to the Margrave of Baden. JOHANNES CASPAR KERL, a rival of Froberger, also under the protection of Ferdinand III., and entrusted to the care of Carissimi in Rome. PACHELBEL (1653-1706), formerly assistant organist of St. Stephen's in Vienna, then successively organist at Eisenach, Erfurt, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg. BUXTEHUDE (1637-1707), the celebrated organist at Lübeck. BRUHNS, his pupil. BÖHM, organist of St. John's Church in Lüneburg.