at the outset he wrote for Italy, he showed but little of that easy Assomption of the genius of Italian art which many other foreign composers have attained.  It was not till he formed his celebrated art partnership with Scribe, the greatest of librettists, and succeeded in opening the gates of the Grand Opera of Paris with all its resources, more vast than exist anywhere else, that Meyerbeer found his true vocation, the production of elaborate dramas in music of the eclectic school.  He inaugurated no clearly defined tendencies in his art; he distinctively belongs to no national school of music; but his long and important connection with the French lyric stage classifies him unmistakably with the composers of this nation.

The subject of this sketch belonged to a family of marked ability.  Jacob Beer was a rich Jewish banker of Berlin, highly honored for his robust intellect and scholarly culture as well as his wealth.  William, one of the sons, became a distinguished astronomer; another, Michael, achieved distinction as a dramatic poet; while the eldest, Jacob, was the composer, who gained his renown under the Italianized name of Giacomo Meyerbeer, a part of the surname having been adopted from that of the rich banker Meyer, who left the musician a great fortune.

Meyerbeer was born at Berlin, September 5, 1794, and was a musical prodigy from his earliest years.  When only four years old he would repeat on the piano the airs he heard from the hand-organs, composing his own accompaniment.  At five he took lessons of Lanska, a pupil of Clementi, and at six he made his appearance at a concert.  Three years afterward the critics spoke of him as one of the best pianists in Berlin.  He studied successively under the greatest masters of the time, Clemcnti, Bernhard Anselm Weber, and Abbe Vogler.  While in the latter’s school at Darmstadt, he had for fellow pupils Carl von Weber, Winter, and Gansbachcr.  Every morning the abbe called together his pupils after mass, gave them some theoretical instruction, then assigned each one a theme for composition.  There was great emulation and friendship between Meyerbeer and Weber, which afterward cooled, however, owing to Weber’s disgust at Meyerbeer’s lavish catering to an extravagant taste.  Weber’s severe and bitter criticisms were not forgiven by the Franco-German composer.

Meyerbeer’s first work was the oratorio “Gott und die Natur,” which was performed before the Grand Duke with such success as to gain for him the appointment of court composer.  Meyerbeer’s concerts at Darmstadt and Berlin were brilliant exhibitions; and Moscheles, no mean judge, has told us that if Meyerbeer had devoted himself to the piano, no performer in Europe could have surpassed him.  By advice of Salieri, whom Meyerbeer met in Vienna, he proceeded to Italy to study the cultivation of the voice; for he seems in early life to have clearly recognized how necessary it is for the operatic composer to understand