A musical composer may have a good reason for preserving the manuscript of his new work though he considers it a failure. He may wish to refer to it after a time to ascertain whether his unfavourable opinion remains unchanged on a subsequent examination. Perhaps it contains ideas which he may be glad to employ in later years when his power of invention begins to flag. Still, a celebrated musician would do wisely to destroy any such manuscripts when he no longer requires them; otherwise they are sure to arise against him after his death as posthumous works. They will, at least, lower his fame, if it is too great to be seriously injured by them. In truth, there is often harm done to art as well as to artists by these posthumous publications--in most instances weak productions which have been permitted to live from carelessness of the composers, or perhaps from the natural affection which a father feels for even his most ill-favoured child. Our great composers have generally been extremely cautious, especially during the earlier part of their lifetime, in selecting for publication only such of their manuscripts as they were fully justified in considering worthy of being published. As regards most musicians, it would be better for their reputation if they had published only half the number of their works, and destroyed the other half. It is a noteworthy fact that our great composers have occasionally produced beautiful effects by disregarding the rules laid down in treatises on the theory of music. Beethoven has been not unfrequently a trespasser in this respect. Weber, in the Introductory Chorus of the elves, in 'Oberon,' produces really charming consecutive fifths. So does Handel, in the beautiful Pastoral Symphony in the 'Messiah':-- [Music] and Gluck repeatedly, in the beautiful air of Rinaldo, in 'Armida':-- [Music] Graun, in his cantata, 'Der Tod Jesu' (The Death of Jesus), introduces into the first chorale consecutive fifths upon the words "Zur Frevelthat entschlossen" (On evil deed resolved), thus:-- [Music: Zur Fre-vel-that ent-schlos-sen] which, no doubt, was considered by some musicians as remarkably appropriate to the words, although, probably, they could not have heard it in the performance, had they not previously seen it in notation. Not such whims only, but even oversights and misprints occurring in the works of eminent masters have found admirers, who regarded them as strokes of genius; while, on the other hand, some of the most original and surpassingly beautiful ideas were thought to be misprints, and attempts have actually been made by theorists to correct them.