N. B. The title of Member of one of the Theatrical Committees is dropped--It could bring nothing but vexation--in respect of the Imperial duties I think the point must be handled delicately--not less than the demand for the title of Imperial Chapelmaster, than a regard to my being placed in a position through a court salary to give up the sum which the gentlemen are now paying me. I think that this might best be expressed as a hope or a highest wish sometime to enter the Imperial service, when I could at once accept as much less as the sum received from his Imperial Majesty amounts to. (On the top of the last page): N. B. We shall need it to-morrow at 12 o’clock, because we must then go to Kinsky. I hope to see you to-day. Under these instructions the “Conditions” were drawn up by some person unknown, in manner and form following: It must be the striving and aim of every true artist to achieve a position in which he can devote himself wholly to the elaboration of larger works and not be hindered by other matters or economical considerations. A musical composer can, therefore, have no livelier desire than to be left undisturbedly to the invention of works of magnitude and then to produce them in public. In doing this he must also keep his old age in view and seek to make ample provision for himself against that time. The King of Westphalia has offered Beethoven a salary of 600 ducats in gold for life and 150 ducats travelling expenses, on the single condition that he occasionally play for him and conduct his chamber concerts, which are to be not numerous and short. This offer is certainly entirely in the interest of art and the artist. Beethoven, however, has so great a predilection for life in this city, so much gratitude for the many proofs of good will which he has received here, and so much patriotism for his second fatherland, that he will never cease to count himself among Austrian artists and will never make his domicile elsewhere if the opportunities mentioned above are measurably offered him here. Persons of high and the highest ranks, having asked him to state under what conditions he would be willing to remain here, he has complied with the request as follows: 1. Beethoven should receive from a great personage assurance of a salary for life even if a number of persons of rank contribute to the sum. This salary under the existing conditions of high cost of living, could not be less than 4000 florins a year. Beethoven desires that the donors of this salary consider themselves co-authors of his new works in the large forms, because they place him in a position to devote himself to their production and relieve him of the need of attending to other affairs.