No one knows better than yourself, my friend, the false conclusions to which this exaggeration of an idea, true and suggestive in itself, has led. The partiality of enthusiasm and dilettantism join issue here. It needs no great penetration to discover that Ulibicheffs epitome of the history of music is not the result of impartial research, or of a practical knowledge of even the more important works of past ages, but that it is compiled from a few easily recognised works with the express object of demonstrating that all that has gone before has its end and consummation in Mozart. An author who can seriously maintain that the great masters of counterpoint, Palestrina, Bach, and Handel were only called into being in order that the Requiem might be produced, an author who can only grasp and develop the idea of natural progress up to a certain point and no further--that author has surely mastered neither the idea of progress, nor the nature of the art, nor the work of the master whom he seeks to honour. Such a partial and exclusive appreciation of any artist may satisfy individual taste, for which it is proverbially impossible to account; but scientific investigation, {LIFE OF MOZART.} (xii) which can always be accounted for, seeing that it proceeds from a rational basis, rejects it at once and altogether. You will, I know, agree with me that the critic who, like Ulibicheff, depreciates Beethoven in order to maintain Mozart on his pedestal, does not understand Mozart. The distortion and exaggeration of such an idea leads further to the neglect of those clues to a right understanding of Mozart's development which exist in the circumstances of his life, in his youthful works, and in the conditions of his age and surroundings. These had all direct effect upon his genius, and, in so far as they are disregarded, our conception of the man and the artist will be defective. I am, of course, far from denying that Uübicheff has brought to the performance of his task considerable power of delicate aesthetic analysis, together with much spirit and ingenuity. But his analysis of particular works does not start from artistic form, the specific basis of all works of art; he never seeks to demonstrate how the universal laws of art, under certain conditions, govern all concrete forms according to the individuality of the artist (a difficult task in music, but still essential to its true understanding); instead of this he contents himself with giving us his own reflections on the various compositions he analyses, and the feelings and ideas which they suggest to himself. Such reflections are pleasant and entertaining when they proceed from a clever and cultivated mind; but they are usually more characteristic of the author than of his subject, and are mainly satisfactory to those who fail to grasp the substance of a work of art, and are fain to content themselves with its shadow.