Viotti’s long retirement from the profession of that art on which his fame was built, had not impaired his love of it, nor his inclination to support it. On the institution of the Philharmonic Society, that “decus et tutamen” of instrumental music in this country, he was one of the original members, and, as an honorary performer, not only led the band in turn with Salomon, F. Cramer, Yaniewicz, Spagnoletti and Vaccari, but, like them, interchanged direction and submission, by taking his seat, on the other nights, among the _ripieni_; thus assisting to form an orchestral phalanx that certainly never was witnessed before, and is little likely to be surpassed. Viotti was a person of feelings and sentiments far less artificial than are commonly produced in men whose intercourse with society is fostered by their powers of contributing to its amusement. Mixing, of necessity, a great deal with the world, he seems, nevertheless, in a remarkable degree, to have preserved himself from its corrupting influence; and though, as just remarked, he loved London much, there is very interesting evidence to shew that he loved nature more. The purity and rectitude of his taste—its association with the poetic and the true—stand thus recorded by one who had good opportunities of appreciating him:—“Never did a man attach so much value (says M. Eymar) to the simplest gifts of nature; and never did a child enjoy them more passionately. A simple violet, discovered in its lowly bed among the grass, would transport him with the liveliest joy; a pear, a plum, gathered fresh by his own hands, would, for the moment, make him the happiest of mortals. The perfume of the one had always something new to him, and the taste of the other something more delicious than before. His organs, all delicacy and sensibility, seemed to have preserved, undiminished, their youthful purity. In the country, everything was, to this extraordinary man, an object of fresh interest and enjoyment. The slightest impression seemed communicated to all his senses at once. Every thing affected his imagination; every thing spoke to his heart, and he yielded himself at once to its emotions.” The natural bias of his character receives further illustration in the sketch which he himself has given, descriptive of his picking up one of the varieties of the popular _Ranz des Vaches_, among the mountains of Switzerland. “The _Ranz des Vaches_ which I send you,” says he to a friend, “is neither that with which our friend Jean Jacques has presented us, nor that of which M. de la Borde speaks, in his work upon Music. I cannot say whether it is known or not; all I know is, that I heard it in Switzerland, and, once heard, I have never forgotten it since.