Beethoven’s “long journey” and “great act” both refer to a proposed journey to England with Mälzel, seriously contemplated during the first months of this year. Brunswick’s visit to Vienna occurred just when the project seemed ripe for execution; as it was on his authority that Schindler reports the “farewell meal” and the singing of the canon, this may be accepted as credible. The condition of Karl van Beethoven’s health forced his brother to defer the journey; and Mälzel, too, found reason to wait until the end of the year--the idea of his really very beautiful and striking exhibition, the “Conflagration of Moscow,” had occurred to him and he willingly remained in Vienna to work it out. The change for the better in Karl van Beethoven’s health and pecuniary condition, and the completion of the “Conflagration,” left both Beethoven and Mälzel late in autumn free for their departure. The mechanician was not only a man of unquestionable inventive genius, but he also understood the public; knew as by instinct how to excite and gratify curiosity without disappointing expectation, and had the tact and skill so to arrange his exhibitions as to dismiss his visitors grateful for an amusement for which they had paid. He was personally both respected and popular. He knew by experience the principal cities of the Continent, and London well enough to foresee, that the noble compositions of Handel, Haydn and Cherubini secured the success of his Panharmonicon there; but that if he could add to its repertory some new, striking and popular piece, bearing the now great name of Beethoven, he would increase both its attractiveness and the public interest and curiosity in the composer. Battles and sieges had for many years been favorite subjects for descriptive music, and the grand engagements of the last fifty years were few indeed which had not been fought over again by orchestras, bands and all sorts of instruments. Poor Koczwara--who hanged himself in jest at London in 1792--was the author of a “Grande Battaille” (in D) for orchestra, and the “Battaille de Prague” for pianoforte trio “avec tambour,” or pianoforte solo, commemorative of a victory of Frederick II of Prussia. This, for forty years, was a showpiece throughout Europe and even in America. Devenne composed the “Battle of Gemappe”; Neubauer, of Martinestie; Jadin, of Austerlitz; Fuchs, of Jena; and so on, for orchestra. The grand battle piece for two flutes, which is generally supposed to have existed but in a joke, the point of which is its absurdity, was really published--it was an arrangement of Fuchs’ “Jena.” For the pianoforte solo, or with the accompaniment of two or more instruments, the press teemed with battles. Among them were those of Fleurus, Würzburg, Marengo, Jena (by others than Fuchs), Wagram, the bombardment of Vienna. Steibelt produced two land engagements and a “Combat naval”; Kauer, “Nelson’s Battle”; and so on indefinitely.