This letter can scarcely be called ingenuous by the most zealous of Beethoven’s defenders. Aside from the fact that he had closed the contract, had received an advance on the sum deposited and told Brentano that he would keep his promise even at a sacrifice to himself, the 1000 florins which he now asks Simrock to pay was not the minimum sum which other publishers had offered but the maximum sum which he had asked and all of them had agreed to pay--which, indeed, B. Schott and Sons did pay a year and a half later. Under the circumstances it is scarcely to be wondered at if the appeal to Simrock’s generosity fell on stony soil; but we do not know that it did. The letter was evidently answered by Simrock, who, despairing of ever getting the Mass, may have suggested that he would accept other works in lieu of it, for on March 10, 1823, Beethoven writes again saying (as he had said to Peters in November, 1822) that he should surely receive a mass, for he had written two and was only undecided which one to send. He asked Simrock to be patient till Easter, when he would send one of them to Brentano. He intended also to write a mass for the Emperor. As to other works, he offered the overture to “The Consecration of the House,” the music to “The Ruins of Athens,” the overture to “King Stephen,” some songs and “Kleinigkeiten” for the pianoforte. Only for the new overture did he fix a price (50 ducats), but he added: “You will surely receive one of these two grand masses which are already composed; only be patient till after Easter, by which time I shall have decided which to send.” This is the last letter between Beethoven and Simrock which has been found. It leaves the composer promising _a_ mass instead of delivering _the_ Mass, and that promise unfulfilled;--of a necessity, for the work, though described as “already composed,” was never written.