resence should lead us
into the same frame which prompted not only the rhapsodies of "Charles
Auchester," but the same passionate admiration which all England felt,
while Mendelssohn lived, and which Elizabeth Sheppard shared, not led.
We lay down these volumes after the third perusal, blessing God for the
rich gift of such a life,--a life, sweet, gentle, calm, nowise intense
nor passionate, yet swift, stirring, and laborious even to the point of
morbidness. A Christian without cant; a friend, not clinging to a few
and rejecting the many, nor diffusing his love over the many with no
dominating affection for a few near ones, but loving his own with a
tenacity almost unparalleled, yet reaching out a free, generous sympathy
and kindly devotion even to the hundreds who could give him nothing but
their love. It is thought that his grief over his sister Fanny was the
occasion of the rupture of a blood-vessel in his head, and that it was
the proximate cause of his own death; and yet he who loved with this
idolatrous affection gave his hand to many whose names he hardly knew.
The reader will not overlook, in the second series of letters, the plea
in behalf of an old Swiss guide for remembrance in "Murray," nor that
long letter to Mr. Simrock, the music-publisher, enjoining the utmost
secrecy, and then urging the claims of a man whom he was most desirous
to help.

The letters from Italy and Switzerland were written during the two years
with which he prefaced his quarter-century of labor as composer,
director, and virtuoso. They relate much to Italian painting, the music
of Passion Week, Swiss scenery, his stay with Goethe, and his brilliant
reception in England on his return. They disclose a youth of glorious
promise.

The second series does not disappoint that promise. The man is the youth
a little less exuberant, a little more mature, but no less buoyant,
tender, and loving. The letters are as varied as the claims of one's
family differ from those of the outside world, but are always
Mendelssohnian,--free, pure, unworldly, yet deep and wise. They continue
down to the very close of his life. They are edited by his brother Paul,
and another near relative. Yet unauthorized publications of other
letters will follow, for Mendelssohn was a prolific letter-writer; and
Lampadius, a warm admirer of the composer, has recently announced such a
volume. The public may rejoice in this; for Mendelssohn was not only
purity, but good sense i