asses, cantatas, sonatas, fantasias, arias! What
tenderness was in his soul!--Listen to the "Last Greeting;" what
fancy and emotion! listen to the "Fisher Maiden" and "Post Horn;"
what refinement! listen to the "Serenade;" what devotion! hear the
"Ave Maria"!

Dead at the age of thirty-one; dead after a life of neglect, leaving
all these musical riches behind him!

Franz Schubert was born at Himmelpfortgrand, in 1797. His father was
a musician, but a poor man. Franz was placed at the age of eleven
among the choir-boys of the Court Chapel, where he remained five
years, absorbed in musical studies, and making himself the master of
the leading instruments of the orchestra.

To compose music was his life. His restless genius was ever at work;
always seeking to produce something new, something better. The old
masters, and especially Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, were his
sources of study and inspiration. Music became his world, and all
outside of it was strange and unexplored. All of his moods found
expression in music: his love, his hopes, his wit, his sadness, and
his dreams.

He seems to have composed his best works for the pure love of his
art, with little thought of money or fame. Many of his best works he
never heard performed. He left his manuscript scores scattered about
his rooms, and so they were found in confusion after his decease.

A monument was erected to his memory. On it is the following simple
but touching inscription:--

"The art of music buried here a rich possession, but yet
far fairer hopes. Franz Schubert lies here. Born on the
30th of January, 1797, died on the 19th of November,
1828, thirty-one years old."

Fame almost failed to overtake him in life; his course was so rapid,
and his works were so swiftly produced. It crowned his memory.

Schubert's magnificent symphony in C is one of the most beautiful
works of the kind ever written, and lovers of orchestral music
always delight to find it on the programme of an evening concert. It
is a charm, an enchantment; it awakens feelings that are only active
in the soul under exceptional influences. Yet the listener does not
know to what he is listening: it is all a mystery; no one can tell
what the composer intended to express by this symphony. We know that
the theme is a noble one,--but what? that the soul of the writer
must have been powerfully moved during its