[IX]
AUTOGRAPHS
OF MUSIC,
THE DRAMA,
AND ART
AUTOGRAPHS OF MUSIC, THE DRAMA, AND ART
Illustrated letters
We pry
In the dark archives and tenacious scrolls
Of written thought.—Hartley Coleridge.
On December 17, 1907, four-and-twenty letters of Ludwig van Beethoven were sold at Sotheby's for £660, notwithstanding the fact that the autographs of musicians, artists, and actors, are not even mentioned by the chronicler of prices in 1827! For the solitary letter of Beethoven in my collection I paid M. Noël Charavay £10, and it was at the same outlay I acquired in England an interesting letter of Joseph Haydn's. In extra-illustrating the "History of the Festivals of the Three Choirs," of which my ancestor, William Hayes, Mus. Doc. (1707-1777), was one of the founders and subsequently a conductor, I acquired considerable experience in the market prices of all sorts of musical MSS.
