"The instrumental parts are all copied here, and I bring them with me. Excuse the haste of these lines.—Always yours very truly,
"Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy."
[Mendelssohn to Bartholomew.]
[Written in English.]
"Leipzig, July 21, 1846.
"My dear Sir,—After I had sent off my last letter to you in the morning, yours of the 14th arrived in the evening. I hasten to answer it, and will send the metronomes in a few days, when the last two pieces of the second part will come.
"You receive to-day all the pieces that were still wanting in the 2nd part, and only the Nos. 36, 37, 38, and 39 are now to come, and will be sent off in a few days (two of them are but short recitatives), so that I hope everything is now safe with regard to rehearsals, &c., &c.
"I am quite of your opinion, that accent is the thing, and I much prefer the alteration of a few notes to a bad accent. So I hope you left 'Be not afraid, saith God the Lord, be not afraid, for I am near,' which seems to me much better than the other. At any rate, I hope to stay 6 or 8 or 10 days in London before the Festival.
"In the song, 'O rest in the Lord' (Sei stille dem Herrn), I beg you will adopt something like the words of Ps. 37, v. 4, instead of the words 'and He will ever keep the righteous'! 'and He shall give thee' does very well with the notes; and there is only another expression, instead of 'the desires of thy heart,' necessary to make it fit the music and everything. And instead of the end 'He will defend thee,' &c., I should prefer also Ps. 37, v. 8, perhaps so: 'and cease from anger, and fret not thyself'; or, 'and cease from
