etta, Philip, "The
Christian's Joy;" "Prophecy;" "The Nativity;" "Day of
Rest."--Whiting, G. E., "Dream Pictures;" "Tale of the Viking;"
"Lenora;" and many others.

BACH.

Johann Sebastian Bach, the most eminent of the world's organ-players and
contrapuntists, was born at Eisenach, March 21, 1685, and was the most
illustrious member of a long line of musicians, the Bach family having
been famous almost from time immemorial for its skill in music. He first
studied the piano with his brother, Johann Christoph, and the organ with
Reinecke in Hamburg, and Buxtehude in Luebeck. In 1703 he was court
musician in Weimar, and afterwards was engaged as organist in Arnstadt
and Muehlhausen. In 1708 he was court organist, and in 1714 concert-master
in Weimar. In 1718 he was chapel-master to the Prince von Koethen, and in
1723 was appointed music-director and cantor at the St. Thomas School in
Leipsic,--a position which he held during the remainder of his life. He
has left for the admiration of posterity an almost endless list of vocal
and instrumental works, including cantatas, chorales, motets,
magnificats, masses, fugues, sonatas, and fantasies, the "Christmas
Oratorio," and several settings of the Passion, of which the most famous
are the "St. John" and "St. Matthew," the latter of which Mendelssohn
re-introduced to the world in 1829, after it had slumbered an entire
century. His most famous instrumental work is the "Well-tempered
Clavichord,"--a collection of forty-eight fugues and preludes, which was
written for his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, to whom he also
dedicated a large number of piano pieces and songs. His first wife was
his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, the youngest daughter of Johann Michael
Bach, a composer of no common ability. By these two wives he had
twenty-one children, of whom the most celebrated were Carl Phillipp
Emanuel, born in 1714, known as the "Berlin Bach;" Johann Christoph
Friedrich, born in 1732, the "Buecheburger Bach;" and Johann Christian,
born in 1735, who became famous as the "London Bach." Large as the family
was, it is now extinct. Bach was industrious, simple, honest, and
God-fearing, like all his family. He was an incessant and laborious
writer from necessity, as his compensation was hardly sufficient to
maintain his large family, and nearly all his music was prepared for the
service of the church by contract. The prominent charact