was put aside, did not escape me. Evils of this nature frequently weaken his greatest compositions, those which sprang from a too exuberant conception. It is not seldom that the unbiassed listener is rudely awakened from his transport. The singular and original seemed to be his chief aim in composition, as is confirmed by the answer which he made to a lady who asked him if he often attended Mozart’s operas. “I do not know them,” he replied, “and do not care to hear the music of others lest I forfeit some of my originality.” The veteran Tomaschek when he wrote thus had heard all the greatest virtuosos of the pianoforte, who, from the days of Mozart to 1840, had made themselves famous; and yet Beethoven remained for him still “the lord of pianoforte players” and “the giant among pianoforte players.” Still, great as he was now when Tomaschek heard him, Beethoven could write three years later that he had greatly perfected his playing. It is only to be added to the history of the year 1798, that it is the time in which Beethoven fixes the beginning of his deafness. Like it, the year 1799 offers, upon the whole, but scanty materials to the biographers of Beethoven--standing in broad contrast to the next and, indeed all succeeding years, in which their quantity and variety become a source of embarrassment. Two new and valuable, though but passing acquaintances, were made by Beethoven this year, however--with Domenico Dragonetti, the greatest contrabassist known to history, and John Baptist Cramer, one of the greatest pianists. Dragonetti was not more remarkable for his astounding execution than for the deep, genuine musical feeling which elevated and ennobled it. He was now--the spring of 1799, so far as the means are at hand of determining the time--returning to London from a visit to his native province, and his route taking him to Vienna he remained there for several weeks. Beethoven and he soon met and they were mutually pleased with each other. Many years afterwards Dragonetti related the following anecdote to Samuel Appleby, Esq., of Brighton, England: “Beethoven had been told that his new friend could execute violoncello music upon his huge instrument, and one morning, when Dragonetti called at his room, he expressed his desire to hear a sonata. The contrabass was sent for, and the Sonata, No. 2, of Op. 5, was selected. Beethoven played his part, with his eyes immovably fixed upon his companion, and, in the finale, where the arpeggios occur, was so delighted and excited that at the close he sprang up and threw his arms around both player and instrument.” The unlucky contrabassists of orchestras had frequent occasion during the next few years to know that this new revelation of the powers and possibilities of their instrument to Beethoven, was not forgotten.