in the sphere Mamiani's "Ithuriel" describes, where there reigns an eternal
"Santa armonia di voglie e di pensieri"—
sacred harmony of thought and will—which is the eternal desideratum, which so few men have, even the greater ones; sphere wherein our Beethoven himself, that
"Anima alpestre,"
storm-tossed soul, buffeted spirit, out of harmony with himself and others, did not most reside (Shakespeare, on the contrary, did—seemed a native of it, nay, dwelling in it, and speaking thence of the tragedies and annoys of earth); but of whose profoundest heart in compensation he knew the deepest secret, in whose bosom's centre he nestled (in his happy hours), repairing thither from the disgusts and battles of the world, or expatiating in the blessed hope of everlasting life, after the raging conflict of doubts and queries, to whose inmost holy of holies he penetrated, and was welcomed; he, the wayward child—to extend the idea—leaving all his toys, and running in a passion of sobs to the Eternal Bosom, with a more peculiar smile than that other who dwelt for ever in its courts, or lingered round his mother's (the Madonna's) knee; for Mozart I fancy the Mother's favourite, Beethoven the Father's; o'er Mozart's music one would inscribe this—
"Madre, fonte d'amore
Ove ogni odio s'ammorza
Che su dal ciel tanta dolcezza stille,"
but over Beethoven's—
"Ma sovra Olimpo ed Ossa
Trona il gran Giove."
Here, in this andante of andantes, we have, as in the bosom of spring after the storms of winter—as over cerulean seas in a southern clime after them,—that effluence, which is like the satisfaction of a good conscience; that breath which went up from the dominated ocean, when One said—"Be Still!"