which probably refers to a debt contracted by one of the women of the court chapel. A few years later, as we have seen, he seems to have been intrusted with the training of Johanna Helena Averdonck, whom he brought forward as his pupil in March, 1778, and the singer Gazzenello was his pupil before she went elsewhere. It was largely his own fault that the musically gifted man was unfortunate in both domestic and official relations. His intemperance in drink, probably inherited from his mother but attributed by old Fischer to the wine trade in which his father embarked, made itself apparent at an early date, and by yielding to it more and more as he grew older he undoubtedly impaired his voice and did much to bring about his later condition of poverty. How it finally led to a catastrophe we shall see later. According to the testimony of the widow Karth, he was a tall, handsome man, and wore powdered hair in his later years. Fischer does not wholly agree with her: “of medium height, longish face, broad forehead, round nose, broad shoulders, serious eyes, face somewhat scarred, thin pigtail.” Three and a half years after obtaining his salary of 100 th. he ventured to marry. Heinrich Kewerich, the father of his wife, was head cook in that palace at Ehrenbreitstein in which Clemens danced himself out of this world, but he died before that event took place.[9] His wife, as the church records testify, was Anna Clara Daubach. Her daughter Maria Magdalena, born December 19, 1746, married a certain Johann Laym, valet of the Elector of Trèves, on January 30, 1763. On November 28, 1765, the husband died, and Maria Magdalena was a widow before she had completed her 19th year. In a little less than two years the marriage register of St. Remigius, at Bonn, was enriched by this entry: THE PARENTS OF THE COMPOSER _12ma 9bris. Praevia Dispensatione super 3bus denuntiationibus copulavi D. Joannem van Beethoven, Dni. Ludovici van Beethoven et Mariae Josephae Poll conjugum filium legitimum, et Mariam Magdalenam Keferich viduam Leym ex Ehrenbreitstein, Henrici Keferich et annae clarae Westorffs filiam legitimam. Coram testibus Josepho clemente Belseroski et philippo Salomon._ That is, Johann van Beethoven has married the young widow Laym. How it came that the marriage took place in Bonn instead of the home of the bride we are told by Fischer. Chapelmaster van Beethoven was not at all agreed that his son should marry a woman of a lower station in life than his own. He did not continue his opposition against the fixed determination of his son; but it is to be surmised that he would not have attended a ceremony in Ehrenbreitstein, and hence the matter was disposed of quickly in Bonn. After the wedding the young pair paid a visit of a few days’ duration to Ehrenbreitstein. CHARACTER OF MME. VAN BEETHOVEN