"In this manner we arrived at the town gate, just as they were lighting the lamps. The carriage drew up before the guard-house. While Beneke gave our names to the sergeant, I anxiously asked one of the soldiers who stood round the carriage, 'Is the trunk still secured?' 'There is no trunk there,' was the reply. With one bound I was out of the carriage, and rushed out through the gate with a drawn hunting-knife. Had I with more reflection listened awhile, I might perhaps have been fortunate enough to hear and overtake the thieves running off by some side-path. But in my blind rage I had far overshot the place where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my over-haste when I found myself in the open field. Inconsolable for my loss, I turned back. While my fellow-traveller looked for the inn, I hastened to the police-office and requested that an immediate search might be made in the garden houses outside the gate. To my astonishment and vexation I was informed that the jurisdiction outside the gate belonged to Weende, and that I must address my request there. As Weende was half a league from Gottingen, I was compelled to abandon for that evening all further steps for the recovery of my Guarneri. I passed a sleepless night, in a state of mind such as, in my hitherto fortunate career, had been wholly unknown to me. Had I not lost my splendid Guarneri, the exponent of all the artistic excellence I had till then attained, I could have lightly borne the loss of the rest. On the following morning the police sent to inform me that an empty trunk and a Violin-case had been found in the fields behind the gardens. Full of joy I hastened thither, in the hope that the thieves might have left the Violin in the case, as an object of no value to them; but, unfortunately, it did not prove so. The bow of the Violin, a genuine Tourte, secured in the lid of the case, had remained undiscovered."--_Spohr's Autobiography_. SPOHR AND THE COLLECTOR.