marvel of
beautiful things,' that if he had lived to see the result,

'Certo non capirebbe nelle pelle;
_E saltando_, _e correndo_, _e fulminando_,
S' andrebbe querelando,
E per tutto gridando ad alta voce
_Giorgin d'Arezzo meterebbe in croce_,
Oggi universalmente
Odiato della gente
_Quasi publico ladro e assassino_';

and you are reminded irresistibly of Berlioz betrampling Lachnith and the
ingenious Castil-Blaze and defending Beethoven against the destructive
pedantry of Fetis. And, just as the _Vita_ is invaluable as a personal
record of artist-life in the Italy of the Renaissance, so are the
_Memoires_ invaluable as a personal record of the works and ways of
musicians in the Paris of the Romantic revival. Berlioz is revealed in
them for one of the race of the giants. He is the musician of 1830, as
Delacroix is the painter; and his work is as typical and as significant
as the _Sardanapale_ and the _Faust_ lithographs.

His Theory of Autobiography.

To read the _Memoires_ is to feel that in writing them the great musician
deliberately set himself to win the heart of posterity. He believed in
himself, and he believed in his music: he divined that one day or another
he would be legendary as well as immortal; and he took an infinite deal
of pains to make certain that the ideal which was presently to represent
him in men's minds should be an ideal of which he could thoroughly
approve. It is fair to note that in this care for the good will and the
good word of the future he was not by any means alone. The
_romantiques_, indeed, were keen--from Napoleon downwards--to make the
very best of themselves. The poet of the _Legende des Siecles_, for
example, went early to work to arrange the story of his life and
character at least as carefully as he composed the audiences of his
_premieres_; and he did it with so light a hand, and with such a sense of
the importance of secrecy, that it is even now by no means so well and
widely known as it should be that _Victor Hugo raconte par un Temoin de
sa Vie_ is the work of the hero's wife, and was not only inspired but may
also have been revised and prepared for publication by the hero himself.
Again, the dramatist of _Antony_ and the novelist of _Bragelonne_ was
never so happy as when he was engaged upon the creation of what he hoped
would be the historical Dumas; he made volume after volume of delightful
reading out of his own impressions and