"I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and restraining my irritability on many subjects; but if I happen to be touched at any time when I am more than usually susceptible of anger, I burst forth more violently than any one else. B. has doubtless most excellent qualities, but he thinks himself utterly without faults, and yet is most open to blame for those for which he censures others. He has a littleness of mind which I have held in contempt since my infancy." As a correspondent example of the manner in which true greatness apologizes for its errors, we must quote a letter, lately made public, from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke. "Sir: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it as that, when one told me you were sickly, and would not live, I answered, ''Twere better if you were dead.' I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness, for I am now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for having had hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to embroil me. "I am your most humble and unfortunate servant, "ISAAC NEWTON." And this letter, observe, was quoted as proof of insanity in Newton. Locke, however, shows by his reply that _he_ did not think the power of full sincerity and elevation above self-love proved a man to be insane. At a happy period Beethoven thus unveils the generous sympathies of his heart. "My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I can well execute; six or seven publishers, and more, being ready to take any of my works. I need no longer submit to being bargained with; I ask my terms, and am paid. You see this is an excellent thing; as, for instance, I see a friend in want, and my purse does not at the moment permit me to assist him; I have but to sit down and write, and my friend is no longer in need." Some additional particulars are given, in the letters collected by Moscheles, of the struggles of his mind during the coming on of deafness. This calamity, falling upon the greatest genius of his time, in the prime of manhood,--a calamity which threatened to destroy not only all enjoyment of life, but the power of using the vast treasure with which he had been endowed for the use of all men,--casts common ills so into the shade that they can scarcely be seen. Who dares complain, since Beethoven could resign himself, to such an ill at such a time as this?