Beethoven was no exception to the rule, that only a great man can be a great artist. True, in his later years his correspondence shows at times an ignorance of the rules of grammar and orthography; but it also proves, what may be determined from a thousand other indications, that he was a deep thinker, and that he had a mind of no small degree of cultivation, as it certainly was one of great intellectual power. Had he devoted his life to any other profession than music,--to law, theology, science, or letters,--he would have attained high eminence, and enrolled himself among the great. But we have anticipated a little, and now turn back to an event which occurred soon after he had completed his thirteenth year, and which proved in its consequences of the highest moment to him,--the death of the Elector, which took place on the 15th of April, 1784. He was succeeded by Maximilian Francis, Bishop of Münster, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a son of the Emperor Francis and Maria Theresa of Austria. A word upon this family of imperial musicians may, perhaps, be pardoned. It was Charles VI., the father of Maria Theresa, a composer of canons and music for the harpsichord, who, upon being complimented by his Kapellmeister as being well able to officiate as a music-director, dryly observed, "Upon the whole, however, I like my present position better!" His daughter sang an air upon the stage of the Court Theatre in her fifth year; and in 1739, just before her accession to the imperial dignity, being in Florence, she sang a duet with Senesino--of Handelian memory--with such grace and splendor of voice, that the tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. In all her wars and amid all the cares of state, Maria Theresa never ceased to cherish music. Her children were put under the best instructors, and made thorough musicians;--Joseph, whom Mozart so loved, though the victim of his shabby treatment; Maria Antoinette, the patron of Gluck and the head of his party in Paris; Max Franz, with whom we now have to do,--and so forth.