concerts in a fortnight, and stormed the affections and admiration of the English public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe.  While in London a calamity befell him.  A rascally agent in whom he implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred concerts, an enormous sum, amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds sterling.  Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned the condolences with which his friends sought to comfort him, saying he could easily make the money again, that his wealth was not in money, but in the power of making money.

The artist’s musical wanderings were nearly without ceasing.  His restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be designated by the term “colossal.”  It seems cumbersome and monotonous to repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended by features of peculiar interest.  He offered, in the summer of 1841, to give the proceeds of a concert to the completion of the Cathedral of Cologne (who that loves music does not remember Liszt’s setting of Heine’s song “Im Rhein,” where he translates the glory of the Cathedral into music?).  Liszt was then staying at the island of Nonneworth, near Bonn, and a musical society, the Liedertafel, resolved to escort him up to Cologne with due pomp, and so made a grand excursion with a great company of invited guests on a steamboat hired for the purpose.  A fine band of music greeted Liszt on landing, and an extensive banquet was then served, at which Liszt made an eloquent speech, full of wit and feeling.  The artist acceded to the desire of the great congregation of people who had gathered to hear him play; and his piano was brought into the ruined old chapel of the ancient nunnery, about which so many romantic Rhenish legends cluster.  Liszt gave a display of his wonderful powers to the delighted multitude, and the long-deserted hall of Nonneworth chapel, which for many years had only heard the melancholy call of the owl, resounded with the most magnificent music.  Finally the procession with Liszt at the head marched to the steamboat, and the vessel glided over the bosom of the Rhine amid the dazzling glare of fireworks and to the music of singing and instruments.  All Cologne was assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his frantic admirers to his hotel.

In common with all other great musicians, Liszt has throughout life been a reverential admirer of the genius of Beethoven, an isolated force in music without peer or parallel.  In his later years Liszt bitterly reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth, he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas.  Many interesting facts in Liszt’s life connect themselves, directly or indirectly, with Beethoven.  Among these is