The Kapellmeister, in 1792, was Andrea Lucchesi, a native of Motta, in the Venetian territory, a fertile and accomplished composer in most styles.  The concert-master was Joseph Reicha, a virtuoso upon the violoncello, a very fine conductor, and no mean composer.  The violins were sixteen in number; among them were Franz Ries, Neefe, Anton Reicha,—­afterward the celebrated director of the Paris Conservatoire,—­and Andreas Romberg; violas four, among them Ludwig van Beethoven; violoncellists three, among them Bernhard Romberg; contrabassists also three.  There were two oboes, two flutes,—­one of them played by another Anton Reicha,—­two clarinets, two horns,—­one by Simrock, a celebrated player, and founder of the music-publishing house of that name still existing in Bonn,—­three bassoons, four trumpets, and the usual tympani.

Fourteen of the forty-three musicians were soloists upon their several instruments; some half a dozen of them were already known as composers.  Four years, at the least, of service in such an orchestra may well be considered of all schools the best in which Beethoven could have been placed.  Let his works decide.

Our article shall close with some pictures photographed in the sunshine which gilded the closing years of Beethoven’s Bonn life.  They illustrate the character of the man and of the people with whom he lived and moved.

In 1791, in that beautiful season of the year in Central Europe, when the heats of summer are past and the autumn rains not yet set in, the Elector journeyed to Mergentheim, to hold, in his capacity of Grand Master, a convocation of the Teutonic Order.  The leading singers of his Chapel, and some twenty members of the Orchestra, under Ries as director, followed in two large barges.  Before, starting upon the expedition, the company assembled and elected a king.  The dignity was conferred upon Joseph Lux, the bass singer and comic actor, who, in distributing the offices of his court, appointed Ludwig van Beethoven and Bernhard Romberg scullions!

A glorious time and a merry they had of it, following slowly the windings of the Rhine and the Main, now impelled by the wind, now drawn by horses, against the swift current, in this loveliest time of the year.

In those days, when steamboats were not, such a voyage was slow, and not seldom in a high degree tedious.  With such a company the want of speed was a consideration of no importance, and the memory of this journey was in after years among Beethoven’s brightest.  Those who know the Rhine and the Main can easily conceive that this should be so.  The route embraced the whole extent of the famous highlands of the former river, from the Drachenfels and Rolandseek to the heights of the Niederwald above Ruedesheim, and that lovely section of the latter which divides the hills of the Odenwald from those of Spessart.  The voyagers passed a thousand points of local and historic interest.  The old castles—­among them Stolzenfels