Your well-wishing
Rudolph.[25]
Vienna, July 31st, 1823."
No doubt, there have been in olden time kings who, as history records, possessed as much skill in music as their best bards or minstrels. If Alfred the Great could enter and explore the Danish camp under the disguise of a harper, his harp-playing must have been in the genuine professional manner of his time, otherwise it would have revealed to the Danish lovers of music that he was not what he pretended to be.
To become an eminent musician, one requires, besides an extraordinary talent, much time, freedom from disturbance, and perseverance,—conditions which are seldom at the command of royal personages. The middle classes are in this respect the most favoured,—as they are, in fact, in all intellectual pursuits. When King Solomon says: "Give me neither poverty nor riches," (Proverbs, Chap. XXX. v. 8), he speaks rather as a musician, or poet. A king requires riches as necessarily as a musician requires talent.