ession than music,--to law, theology,
science, or letters,--he would have attained high eminence, and
enrolled himself among the great.

But we have anticipated a little, and now turn back to an event which
occurred soon after he had completed his thirteenth year, and which
proved in its consequences of the highest moment to him,--the death
of the Elector, which took place on the 15th of April, 1784. He was
succeeded by Maximilian Francis, Bishop of Muenster, Grand Master of
the Teutonic Order, a son of the Emperor Francis and Maria Theresa of
Austria.

A word upon this family of imperial musicians may, perhaps, be pardoned.
It was Charles VI., the father of Maria Theresa, a composer of canons
and music for the harpsichord, who, upon being complimented by his
Kapellmeister as being well able to officiate as a music-director, dryly
observed, "Upon the whole, however, I like my present position better!"
His daughter sang an air upon the stage of the Court Theatre in her
fifth year; and in 1739, just before her accession to the imperial
dignity, being in Florence, she sang a duet with Senesino--of Handelian
memory--with such grace and splendor of voice, that the tears rolled
down the old man's cheeks. In all her wars and amid all the cares of
state, Maria Theresa never ceased to cherish music. Her children were
put under the best instructors, and made thorough musicians;--Joseph,
whom Mozart so loved, though the victim of his shabby treatment; Maria
Antoinette, the patron of Gluck and the head of his party in Paris; Max
Franz, with whom we now have to do,--and so forth.

Upon learning the death of Max Frederick, his successor hastened to Bonn
to assume the Archiepiscopal and Electoral dignities, with which he
was formally invested in the spring of 1785. In the train of the new
Elector, who was still in the prime of life, was the Austrian Count
Waldstein, his favorite and constant companion. Waldstein, like his
master, was more than an amateur,--he was a fine practical musician. The
promising pupil of Neefe was soon brought to his notice, and his talents
and attainments excited in him an extraordinary interest. Coming from
Vienna, where Mozart and Haydn were in the full tide of their success,
where Gluck's operas were heard with rapture, and where in the second
rank of musicians and composers were such names as Salieri, Righini,
Anfossi, and Martini, Waldstein could well judge of the promise of the
boy. He foresaw at onc