But our greatest thanks are due to Hr. Mälzel, since it was he who first conceived the idea of this academy and there fell to him afterward the management, care and arrangement--the most arduous labors of all. I must also thank him in particular, because by the projection of this academy, he gave me the opportunity, long and ardently desired, by means of the composition especially written for this philanthropic purpose and delivered to him without pay, to lay a work of magnitude upon the altar of the fatherland under the existing conditions. Ludwig van Beethoven. Why was this document not printed? Beethoven had suddenly quarreled with Mälzel. Evidence of the impatience with which Beethoven conducted the controversy with the heirs of Prince Kinsky, concerning the payment of the annuity installments, is given by a letter dated “Vienna, December 18, 1813,” to Dr. Beyer, a lawyer in Prague, in which he says: I have many times cursed this unhappy decree through which I have been plunged into numberless sorrows. Oliva is no longer here and it is unendurable to lose so much time in the matter, which I steal from my art only to see things at a standstill. I have now sent a new opinion to Wolff, he wanted to begin legal proceedings, but I think it better as I have written to Wolff, first to send a petition to the general courts--give me your help in the matter and do not let me go to destruction, here, surrounded by innumerable enemies in everything that I do, I am almost desperate. My brother, whom I have overwhelmed with benevolences, with whose consent I certainly am ... partly in misery is--my greatest enemy!... I would gladly have taken the entire matter out of Wolff’s hands and placed it in yours, but we should only make new enemies. [Sidenote: COMPOSITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS OF 1813] The ascertained compositions of this year are: I. Triumphal March, C major, for Kuffner’s “Tarpeia.” II. “Wellington’s Victory.” III. Song: “Der Bardengeist” (“On November 3d, 1813”). IV. Canon: “Kurz ist der Schmerz.” (First form.) “For Herrn Naue as a souvenir from L. v. Beethoven, Vienna, November 23, 1813.” Johann Friedrich Naue, successor to Türk as Musik-Direktor, etc., at Halle, born in 1790, appears to have been in Vienna on a visit this Autumn. V. Irish airs quite, or nearly, completed. Publications: In Thomson’s preface to the First Volume of “A Select Collection of Original Irish Airs,” dated “Edinburgh, Anno 1814,” he remarks: “After the volume was printed and some copies of it had been circulated, an opportunity occurred of sending it to Beethoven, who corrected the few inaccuracies that had escaped the notice of the Editor and his friends; and he trusts it will be found without a single error.”