was folly to imitate him unless one had his genius and his religious beliefs; moreover, it was practically impossible for singers to-day to sing the long-sustained notes of this music in a cantabile manner. Karl August Reichardt, afterwards Court Organist in Altenburg, S. M. de Boer, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, Carl Czerny, Friedrich Kuhlau, Sir George Smart and Moritz Schlesinger were among the visitors to Baden in the summer to whose meetings with the composer the Conversation Books bear always interesting and sometimes diverting witness. Reichardt’s visit seems to have been brief, and it is safe to presume that the young man received scant encouragement to remain long, for his talk was chiefly about himself, his desire to get advice as to a good teacher and to have Beethoven look at some of his music. The man from Holland, who probably had used his predicate as a member of the Academy which had elected Beethoven an honorary member to gain an audience, must have diverted the composer with his broken German, which looks no more comical in the Conversation Book than it must have sounded; but a canon without words which he carried away with him may be said to bear witness to the fact that he made a good impression on Beethoven, to whom he gave information concerning the state of music in the Dutch country. Czerny, apparently, was urged by his erstwhile teacher to get an appointment and to compose in the larger forms. Beethoven was curious to learn how much Czerny received for his compositions and Czerny told him that he attached no importance to his pieces, because he scribbled them down so easily, and that he took music from the publishers in exchange.