in
Mergentheim, I have no doubt he would have played to me hours; and the
day, thus spent in the society of these two great artists, would have
been transformed into a day of the highest bliss."

Doubtless, Herr Junker, judging from the enthusiasm with which you have
written, it would have been so; and for our sake, as well as your own,
we heartily wish you had remained!

Again in Bonn,--the young master's last year in his native city,--that
_petite perle_. It was a fortunate circumstance for the development of
a genius so powerful and original, that the place was not one of such
importance as to call thither any composer or pianist of very great
eminence,--such a one as would have ruled the musical sphere in which
he moved, and become an object of imitation to the young student.
Beethoven's instructors and the musical atmosphere in which he lived and
wrought were fully able to ground him firmly in the laws and rules of
the art, without restraining the natural bent of his genius. His taste
for orchestral music, even, was developed in no particular school,
formed upon no single model,--the Electoral band playing, with equal
care and spirit, music from the presses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich,
Mannheim, Paris, London. Mozart, however, was Beethoven's favorite,
and his influence is unmistakably impressed upon many of the early
compositions of his young admirer.

But the youthful genius was fast becoming so superior to all around him,
that a wider field was necessary for his full development. He needed the
opportunity to measure his powers with those of the men who stood,
by general consent, at the head of the art; he felt the necessity of
instruction by teachers of a different and higher character, if any
could be found. Mozart, it is true, had just passed away, but still
Vienna remained the great metropolis of music; and thither his hopes and
wishes turned. An interview with Haydn added strength to these hopes and
wishes. This was upon Haydn's return, in the spring of 1792, after his
first visit to London, where he had composed for and directed in the
concerts of that Johann Peter Salomon in whose house Beethoven first
saw the light. The veteran composer, on his way home, came to Bonn, and
there accepted an invitation from the Electoral Orchestra to a breakfast
in Godesberg. Here Beethoven was introduced to him, and placed before
him a cantata which he had offered for performance at Mergentheim,
the preceding autumn, but