nstead of with
the violin as those in Bamberg were, and in the second place his
criticisms and essays on musical subjects in Rochlitz's _Musicalische
Zeitung_ had gained him a certain reputation as an authority in musical
matters. After having refused the offer of a post as music-director in
his native city of Koenigsberg in February (1814), he was agreeably
surprised by Hippel's promise to secure his return into official life.
Accordingly towards the end of September in that same year he set out
for Berlin.

Here ends what may be termed the second act of this very unsettled,
eventful life. That this wandering aside from the career he first
started upon--viz., that of law and public life to tread the thorny
precarious path of art was fraught with greater consequences than can
be estimated upon the unfortunate man's character, will be evident from
what has been already stated. These dark years were those mainly
instrumental in stifling the good germs that had once been in him, and
yet more did they result in encouraging and bringing out prominently
all his less praiseworthy qualities. As his works and his life are so
intimately interwoven, and as his works were nearly all written
subsequent to this disastrous period, it seemed desirable to dwell
somewhat upon the events and circumstances of the earlier part of his
life. With the view of showing that Hoffmann himself fully understood
the nature and tendency of his existence in Bamberg, the following
passages are quoted from a letter written to Dr. Speyer in that town in
July, 1813:--

"I felt in my own mind perfectly convinced that I must get out of
Bamberg as soon as possible if I was not to be ruined altogether. Call
vividly to mind what my life in Bamberg was from the first moment of my
arrival, and you will allow that everything co-operated like an hostile
demoniacal power to thrust me forcibly from the path I had chosen, or
rather from art, to which I had devoted my entire existence, my very
self with all my activities and energies. My position under Cuno, and
even all those unbargained-for duties which were thrown upon me by
Holbein, notwithstanding their many seductive attractions, but above
all those scenes with----which I shall never forget and never overcome,
the old man's miserable stupid platitudes, which yet in another respect
had a pernicious influence, those wretched, terrible scenes with----and
last of all with----, whom I always thought a parvenu ill-