See what were some of the vexations and troubles that tormented him, as most simply but startlingly recorded in a journal which he kept for several years. The period to which our extract refers was when some of his greatest pieces were composed; the second mass, for example, one of the grandest efforts of the "boisterous, heaven storming giant." But deafness at the same time was the cause of constant misunderstandings and changes:

"1819.

"31st January. Given warning to the housekeeper.

"15th February. The kitchen maid came.

"8th March.

The kitchen-maid gave a fortnight's warning.

"22nd of this month, the new housekeeper came.

"12th May. Arrived at Modling.

"Miser et pauper sum.

"14th May. The housemaid came; to have six florins per month. "20th July. Given warning to the housekeeper.

"1820.

"17th April. The kitchen-maid came. A bad day. (This means that he had nothing to eat, because all the victuals were spoiled through long waiting).

"16th May. Given warning to the kitchen-maid.

"19th.

The kitchen-maid left.

"30th. The woman came.

"1st July. The kitchen-maid arrived.

"28th. At night, the kitchen-maid ran away.

"The woman from Unter-Döbling came.

"The four bad days, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th August. Dined at Lerchenfeld.

"The woman's month expires.

"6th September. The girl came.

"22nd October. The girl left.

"12th December. "18th.

The kitchen-maid came.

Given warning to the kitchen-maid. "27th. The new housemaid came."

Beethoven was the constant sport for a number of years of one disappointment and grievous annoyance or another. Several of his near relatives were the source of torment to him. And then his musical vexations were not less terrible to his temperament. The court of Austria never did anything for him, so that within a few weeks of his decease fear of want drove him to apply, through M. Moscheles, to the Philharmonic Society of London, for aid, which was not refused; although we think the hundred pounds was a paltry sum, as the promise of its repetition, if wanted, was in exceedingly bad taste, and most unfitting the rare spirit, whom to cherish was a more blessed thing to the giver than the receiver. But we

must have done, and will close our paper with two passages belonging to spheres of information which are always welcome when we read of an extraordinary personage. Concerning Beethoven's figure, aspect, gesticulations &c. :

measure.

"Beethoven's height scarcely exceeded five feet four inches, Vienna His figure was compact, strong, and muscular. His head, which was unusually large, was covered with long bushy grey hair, which, being always in a state of disorder, gave a certain wildness to his appearance. This wildness was not a little heightened when he suffered his beard to grow to a great length, as he frequently did. His forehead was high and expanded; and he had small brown eyes, which, when he laughed, seemed to be nearly sunk in his head; but on the other hand, they were suddenly distended to an unusually large size when one of his musical ideas took possession of his mind. On such occasions he would look upwards, his his eyes rolling and flashing brightly, or straight forward with his eyeballs fixed and motionless. His whole personal appearance then underwent a sudden and striking change. There was an air of inspiration and dignity in his aspect; and his diminutive figure seemed to tower to the gigantic proportions of his mind. These fits of sudden inspiration frequently came upon Beethoven when he was in company, and even when he was in the street, where he naturally excited the marked attention of every passer-by. Every thought that arose in his mind was expressed in his animated countenance. He never gesticulated either with his head or his hands, except when he was standing before the orchestra. His mouth was well formed; his under lip (at least in his younger years) protruded a little, and his nose was rather broad. His smile diffused an exceedingly amiable and animated expression over his countenance, which, when he was in conversation with strangers had a peculiarly pleasing and encouraging effect. But though his smile was agreeable, his laugh was otherwise. It was too loud, and distorted his intelligent and strongly marked features. When he laughed, his large head seem to grow larger, his face became broader, and he might not inaptly be likened to a grinning ape; but fortunately his fits of laughter were of very transient duration. His chin was marked in the middle and on each side with a long furrow, which imparted a striking peculiarity to that part of his countenance. His complexion was of a yellowish tint, which, howeve, went off in the summer season, when he was accustomed to be much out in the open air. His plump cheeks where then suffused with fresh hues of red and brown."

And now as to some of his curious habits:

"The use of the bath was as much a necessity to Beethoven as to a Turk; and he was in the habit of submitting himself to frequent ablutions. When it happened that he did not walk out of doors to collect his ideas, he would not unfrequently, in a fit of the most complete abstraction, go to his washhand basin, and pour several jugs of water upon his hands, all the while humming and roaring, for sing he could not. After dabbling in the water till his clothes were wet through, he would pace up and down the room, VOL. I. (1841.) No. III.

DD

with a vacant expression of countenance, and his eyes frightfully distended; the singularity of his aspect being often increased by an unshaven beard. Then he would seat himself at his table and write; and afterwards get up again to the wash-hand basin, and dabble and hum as before. Ludicrous as were these scenes, no one dared venture to notice them, or to disturb him while engaged in his inspiring ablutions, for these were his moments, or I should say his hours, of profoundest meditation. It will be readily believed, that the people in whose houses he lodged were not very well pleased when they found the water trickling through the floor to the ceiling below, as sometimes happened; and Beethoven's change of lodgings was often the consequence of these occurrences. On such occasions comical scenes sometimes ensued."

ART. XI.-Memoirs of Warren Hastings. By the Rev. G. R. GLEIG. Vol. III. Bentley.

To us it is an ungracious task to deal with these memoirs of a governor of India, whose name has so long excited commingled ideas. That he was the object of disgraceful and relentless persecution, not merely by a political clique, but by the voice of a public whose principles were oblique and selfish, cannot well be denied. The age in which he lived was as remarkable for competing opinions, as that those opinions led to aggrandizing and merely expedient results, forgetful totally of the grand interests of the human race. India, for instance, was looked upon as the exhaustless granary of gold and the means of supremacy in office; and men, nay the public, the talkers about personal honour and the whole body of speudo-polemical egotists, were hearty in their expectations and demands for plunder or for profit thence derived.

Warren Hastings went out bred in one of the hottest atmospheres of exclusive and aggrandizing principles. He could not avoid imbibing them, unless he had been a grand reformer, which he was not. Render India subservient to England, make her purses bleed for the sea-girt isle, was the apprehended and cherished principle. Hastings partially great as he was, and good as a man, had neither the principles nor the power to carry into realization that which we of a later age would pronounce proper and necessary. Do enhance our temporal interests, or some such short-sighted dictum, seems to have been born within him, and carried in his pocket, as the apostle of the Leadenhall sovereigns. And that he performed his part pretty well, it needeth not us to describe or detail.

But view this not insignificant man as the object of persecution, when not only a party but a nation was disappointed; behold him first an object of admiration and gratulation, and then of execration and hatred; not merely by declared foes, but pretended friends; and then we shall have an idea of the rottenness and cor

ruption of political partisanship, and of the oppression which a faithful servant must submit to, when his masters are left in the lurch. Warren Hastings, we pronounce, to have been a good, if not a very great man; and so gratifying it is to view him in his retirement, that we will be forgiven if we allow him to be seen in that unobtrusive capacity at considerable length in our pages.

And here we must express ourselves with regard to the prepossessions and competency of the biographer, and say, that amiable, well-read and accomplished as Mr. Gleig is, he proves himself to be nothing better than an eulogist,-to be merely an apologist as an historian, a one-sided memorialist as an author. Feeling with him triumphs over principle; prepossession over facts. What! shall Warren Hasting's exemplary life, and beautiful philanthropy in his retirement screen his positive delinquencies as a governor, and shall his negative errors, as an abnegator of splendid opportunities of reform and of imperative calls for right doing, be brought forward as an extenuation and as a propitiation? No! let Mr. Gleig and all of a like mind with him, and he is a religious instructor, remember such aphorisms as these,-that to do wrong that good may come of it is bad policy, and that the oppression of the weak by the powerful will have for its results, feebleness, disgrace, or retaliation.

The public life of Warren Hastings has been treated in these volumes with a remarkably disproportionate display. The early stages of it, respecting which there is a strange paucity of authentic materials, occupied the biographer at great length. And now, when he has brought the history to a close, we find that the really ascertained particulars,-and these too bearing mainly upon the significant character of his subject,-are treated with a slurring, eulogistic, and most indiscriminate vagueness. Seeing, however, that the Governor-General, if not a really great, was a good man,a personage more fitted to shine in private, than to stamp public affairs with irreproachable steps in advance of his contemporaries, we shall now have the pleasure to direct the reader to a few passages that point their fingers to his latter days.

Mr. Hastings returned to England a comparatively poor man, and was not only at first received with strong marks of approval, but found that his naturally benevolent disposition and love of letters were likely to be appreciated, imagining also that he should have a life of tranquillity and reward to spend. The following passage, descriptive of his first reception is touching, when one considers the after-treatment of the Governor-General :

"I did not tell you that I was early summoned to receive the thanks of the Directors for my services, and the chairman who read them dwelt with a strong emphasis on the word unanimously. From the King and Queen my reception was most gracious. The Board of Control has been more

than polite to me, for they have quoted me as authority, and so have the Court of Directors-both a little more than I like, and in a way that I dislike. My friends expected more, but I can almost assure you that I have received the full recompense of all my services, and I am thankful for it; for the King cannot bestow any honour superior to a good name; and with a larger income I should lose what my present will compel me to-retirement. No, I have not said all. Lord Thurlow has been more substantially my friend than King, Ministers, and Directors. Tell Wilkins that his Gheeta is printed, presented to the King, and published. Mr. Smith inspected the press, and zealously promoted my application forthe patronage of the Court of Directors, by whose authority it was printed. I have yet but one copy, but I believe that some will be sent for his use. I don't know how the public will relish it. If it is abused, Wilkins has a good shelter by standing behind me."

It is pleasing to think of him returning to, and settling at Daylesford. Let us see what were some of his habits and occupations at this cherished spot :

"From the date of his final settlement at Daylesford, Mr. Hastings sank (if the expression be allowable when speaking of so great a man) into the condition of a country gentleman. In all the pursuits of an agriculturist he took the deepest interest. He bred horses, reared sheep, fatted bullocks, sowed and reaped corn, and exhibited in each of these occupations, as one after another they engrossed him, not less of knowledge than of enthusiasm. As a horticulturist, likewise, his name can never be mentioned without respect. His gardens were perfect models of that graceful style which, owing all its beauties to the skill of the artist, yet appears to be the production of untutored nature. He took infinite pains, moreover, to possess himself of the seeds of plants and herbs which he had admired in their native soil of India, and which he believed were not too delicate to be reared and brought to perfection in England. In a word, Mr. Hastings, in the seclusion of Daylesford, was precisely what he used to be when the fate of a great empire depended upon his will; he was constantly employed, and always had for the end of his exertions the attainment of some good and wise purpose, involving moral or physical benefits to his fellow-creatures. It is not, however, to be supposed that he left himself without leisure either to watch, as they befel, the mighty events by which Europe was shaken, or to keep the fine edge of his genius from growing dull for lack of use. He never ceased to take an interest in public affairs; he never lost his taste for intellectual pursuits; and he contrived so to interweave them with the ordinary occupations of life, that the one seemed, in point of fact, to be a portion of the other. The following brief account of the manner in which one day at Daylesford was spent may be taken as a tolerably correct specimen of all the rest. Mr. Hastings had always been an early riser: he was generally up and dressed before any other member of the family began to stir ; and, shutting himself in his own little room, he devoted the first hour of the day to private study. Mr. Hastings breakfasted invariably alone, and his meal never consisted of any other viands than tea and bread and butter;