life, being then seventy-four
years of age. His remains were laid in Poets' Corner in Westminster
Abbey, and the place is marked by a statue by Roubilliac, representing
him leaning over a table covered with musical instruments, his hand
holding a pen, and before him is laid the "Messiah," open at the
words, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

MOZART

By C. E. BOURNE

(1756-1791)

[Illustration: Mozart.]

Leopold Mozart was a violinist in the band of Archbishop Sigismund,
the reigning Prince of Salzburg, and it was probably in compliment to
his master that he bestowed on the youngest of his seven children the
name of Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Sigismundus. Born
on January 27, 1756, this child was destined to make the name of
Mozart famous wherever music is known; and surely no more beautiful
life--beautiful in itself and in the works of immortal beauty which in
its short course were produced--has ever been lived by anyone of those
to whom the crown of inspired singers and an enduring monument in the
temple of art has been given. "Look around," was the epitaph on a
great architect. "Listen," is the most fitting tribute to the
wonderful genius of a Mozart.

Infant prodigies very often turn out to be nobodies in after-life. But
Mozart was an exception; and though he might well have been called
"the marvellous boy," his latest works--and he died at the early age
of thirty-five--were undoubtedly his grandest and most perfect. He
began very early to compose. One of these first attempts was a
concerto so difficult that no one could play it; but the child
undauntedly said, "Why, that's the very reason why it is called a
concerto; people must practise it before they can play it perfectly."

Wolfgang and his sister, Nannerl, as he used to call her, had been
taken by their father, in 1762, to Vienna, where the children played
the piano before the Empress Maria Theresa and her husband. Little
Wolfgang was here, as everywhere, perfectly at his ease, with a
simplicity and childish grace that won every heart. When he had been
playing for some time, he jumped without ceremony on the lap of the
empress, and kissed her heartily for being so good to him. Little
Marie Antoinette, her daughter, afterward the ill-fated wife of Louis
XVI., and then about the same age as Wolfgang, he treated in almost
the same way. He had slipped on the polished floor, to which he was
unaccustomed, and the little princess had hu