eloquently expressive, indeed, of a determination to bear it out against the shocks of doom. In this and other traits, we have the true Beethoven—such spiritual energy as (except in Handel, and with him it was less human) had not yet been dreamt of; such suffering in strife, and yet such glorying in it; such temptations in the wilderness (of his own heart, as well as elsewhere); such final victorious success! And, here we are brought back into our old more genial vein and strain; we forget the spots on the sun, and lose ourselves in his overpowering effulgence. This "erhabensten Triumphgesang" is, to us, that of resurrection; when the ponderous lid was burst from within with light, which at once—so the great fancy expatiates—redoubled the splendour of day all over the world. Handel's selected words—nay, and very remarkably, the great flash-of-chorus itself (one could, indeed, imagine it as having suggested Beethoven's, they are so much alike)—come into the mind,—
"By Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead."
And these—
"La Risurrezione."
"Viva l'eterno Dio: sconfilto e vinto
D'Averno il crudo regnator sen giace:
L'empio pur sente il fiero braccio avvinte.
E l'aspra morte abbassa it ciglio, e tace.
Cade all'uom la catena onde fu cinto
Per fallo antico di pensiero audace:
Iddio, dell'nom vendicatore ha vinto!
Il ciel canta vittoria, e annunzia pace.
Io veggo gia sovra l'eterea mole
Erger di Croce trionfale insegna,
Primo terror d'ogni tartarea trama.
E veggo in alto soglio il sommo Sole,
Che a regnare in eterno ov'egli regna
I redenti mortali aspetta, e chiama."
Transcriber's Note:Added closing quote to title "La Risurrezione".
In Teutonic language, which finds in the highest imaginings only the symbol and apotheosis of human worth and endeavour; which believes, indeed, that by man came and comes the resurrection from the dead; and which regards that life as the most priceless page in human history, to be for ever applied and interpreted by sympathy at will; and first becoming truly divine when we regard it as truly human—in Teutonic thought and dialect, we will conclude with this eloquent and intrinsic application to the greatest of Beethoven's symphonies:—"Nohl names the work the musical Faust of the moral will and its conflicts; a work whose progress shows that there is something greater than Fate, namely, Man, who, descending into the abysses of his own self, fetches counsel and power wherewith to battle with life; and then, re-inforced through his conviction of indestructible oneness with the god-like, celebrates, with dythyrambic victory, the triumph of the eternal Good, and of his own inner Freedom."