’Tis said that art is long and life is fleeting:-- Nay; life is long and brief the span of art! If e’er her breath vouchsafes with gods a meeting, A moment’s favor ’tis of which we’ve had a part. The world is a king and desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is perverse and will not submit to the mould of flattery. Famous artists always labor under an embarrassment;--therefore, first works are the best, though they may have sprung from dark ground. We can only record the fact that Beethoven began the year 1820, as he had begun its immediate predecessor, by sending a New Year’s greeting to the august pupil who was now almost continually in his mind--Archduke Rudolph, soon to be Archbishop and Cardinal[25]--before taking up the story of the incubus which oppressed the composer’s mind, the clog which impeded his creative activities during much of the year--the legal proceedings concerning the guardianship of nephew Karl. Fortunately for the tinge of these pages the end is not distant. Two applications made by Beethoven to the Court of Magistrates had been denied and he now asked for a review of these decisions by the Court of Appeals. The action of the Magistracy had grievously pained him, so he informed the superior tribunal, and not only had his rights been set aside, but no regard had been shown for the welfare of his nephew. Against this he now sought relief, and he set forth his grievances: (1) He was testamentary appointee and the _Landrecht_ had confirmed him and excluded the mother; circumstances compelling his absence from Vienna, he had arranged that Herr Nussböck should be appointed guardian _ad interim_; back permanently in the city, his nephew’s welfare required that he resume the guardianship; (2) The higher education which his nephew’s talents demanded neither the mother nor Nussböck could direct--the former because she was a woman and had conducted herself in a manner which had led the _Landrecht_ to exclude her, Nussböck because he was too much occupied with his duties as Municipal Sequestrator and, having been no more than a paper-maker, he did not possess the insight and judgment essential to the scientific education of the ward. (3) Having no child of his own, his hopes were set on the boy, who was unusually talented, yet he had been told that he had been held back a year in his studies and that owing to a lack of funds he was to be taken from the institution in which he had been placed and given in the care of his mother; by her mismanagement the boy would be sacrificed, it being the aim of the mother to expend his share of the pension money on herself. He had declared to the Magistracy his willingness to defray the costs at the institute and also to engage other masters for the boy. Being “somewhat hard of hearing” communication with him was difficult and therefore he had asked that a co-guardian be appointed in the person of Herr Peters, Prince Lobkowitzsian