ality and artistic skill into a movement of great richness in
effects and beauty in expression. It is unfortunate for the popularity of
such an excellent work that it was composed for a special occasion.

BERLIOZ.

Hector Berlioz, one of the most renowned of modern French composers, and
an acute critic and skilful conductor as well, was born, Dec. 11, 1803,
at La Cote St. Andre, in France. His father was a physician, and intended
him for the same profession. He reluctantly went to Paris and began the
study of medicine; but music became his engrossing passion, and medicine
was abandoned. He entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur, and
soon showed himself superior to all his masters except Cherubini, which
aroused a strong opposition to him and his compositions. It was only
after repeated trials that he took the first prize, which entitled him to
go to Italy for three years. On his return to Paris he encountered
renewed antipathy. His music was not well received, and he was obliged to
support himself by conducting at concerts and writing articles for the
press. As a final resort he organized a concert-tour through Germany and
Russia, the details of which are contained in his extremely interesting
Autobiography. At these concerts his own music was the staple of the
programmes, and it met with great success, though not always played by
the best of orchestras, and not always well by the best, as his own
testimony shows; for his compositions are very exacting, and call for
every resource known to the modern orchestra. The Germans were quick in
appreciating his music; but it was not until after his death that his
ability was conceded in France. In 1839 he was appointed librarian of the
Conservatory, and in 1856 was made a member of the French Academy. These
were the only honors he received, though he long sought to obtain a
professorship in the Conservatory. A romantic but sad incident in his
life was his violent passion for Miss Smithson, an Irish actress, whom he
saw upon the Paris stage in the _role_ of Ophelia, at a time when Victor
Hugo had revived an admiration for Shakspeare among the French. He
married her, but did not live with her long, owing to her bad temper and
ungovernable jealousy; though after the separation he honorably
contributed to her support out of the pittance he was earning. Among his
great works are the opera, "Benvenuto Cellini;" the symphony with chorus,