erviceable to poor suffering humanity, I have never allowed any other
motive to influence me, and never required anything beyond the heartfelt
gratification that it always caused me. With this you will receive an
Oratorio--(A), the performance of which occupies half an evening, also an
Overture and a Fantasia with Chorus--(B). If in your benevolent institution
you possess a _depot_ for such things, I beg you will deposit these three
works there, as a mark of my sympathy for the destitute; to be considered
as their property, and to be given at any concerts intended for their sole
benefit. In addition to these, you will receive an Introduction to the
"Ruins of Athens," the score of which shall be written out for you as soon
as possible. Likewise a Grand Overture to "Ungarn's erste Wohlthaeter"
[Hungary's First Benefactors].

Both form part of two works that I wrote for the Hungarians at the opening
of their new theatre [in Pesth]. Pray give me, however, your written
assurance that these works shall not be performed elsewhere, as they are
not published, nor likely to be so for some time to come. You shall receive
the latter Grand Overture as soon as it is returned to me from Hungary,
which it will be in the course of a few days.

The engraved Fantasia with Chorus could no doubt be executed by a lady, an
amateur, mentioned to me here by Professor Schneller.[2] The words after
the Chorus No. 4, in C major, were altered by the publishers, and are now
quite contrary to the musical expression; those written in _pencil_,
therefore, on the music must be sung. If you can make use of the Oratorio,
I can send you _all the parts written out_, so that the outlay may be less
for the poor. Write to me about this.

Your obedient

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1: The correspondence with Varenna, consisting of fourteen
letters and four notes, was purchased some years ago by a collector of
autographs in Leipzig, and sold again by public auction, probably to
different persons. It would be like pursuing leaves scattered by the wind
to try to recover these letters. Those here given have for the most part
appeared in newspapers; I cannot, therefore, be responsible for the text,
farther than their publication goes, which, however, has evidently been
conducted by a clever hand. The date of the first letter is to be gleaned
from the second, and we also learn from them that _The Ruins of Athens_ and
_King Stephen_ (or at all events the Overt