print, thanks to the zeal of his admirers and the avidity of publishers, proves to me that he was a good judge of his own works.  Fontana included in his collection of posthumous compositions five waltzes—­“Deux Valses,” Op. 69 (in F minor, of 1836; in B minor, of 1829);. and “Trois Valses,” Op. 70 (in G flat major, of 1835; in F minor, of 1843; in D flat major, of 1830).  There are further a waltz in E minor and one in E major (of 1829). [Footnote:  The “Deux Valses melancoliques” (in F minor and B minor), ecrits sur l’album de Madame la Comtesse P., 1844 (Cracow:  J. Wildt), the English edition of which (London:  Edwin Ashdown) is entitled “Une soiree en 1844,” “Deux Valses melancoliques,” are Op. 70.  No. 2, and Op. 69, No. 2, of the works of Chopin posthumously published by Fontana.] Some of these waltzes I discussed already when speaking of the master’s early compositions, to which they belong.  The last-mentioned waltz, which the reader will find in Mikuli’s edition (No. 15 of the waltzes), and also in Breitkopf and Hartel’s (No. 22 of the Posthumous works), is a very weak composition; and of all the waltzes not published by the composer himself it may be said that what is good in them has been expressed better in others.

We have of Chopin 27 studies:  Op. 10, “Douze Etudes,” published in July, 1833; Op. 25, “Douze Etudes,” published in October, 1837; and “Trois nouvelles Etudes,” which, before being separately published, appeared in 1840 in the “Methode des Methodes pour le piano” by F. J. Fetis and I. Moscheles.  The dates of their publication, as in the case of many other works, do not indicate the approximate dates of their composition.  Sowinski tells us, for instance, that Chopin brought the first book of his studies with him to Paris in 1831.  A Polish musician who visited the French capital in 1834 heard Chopin play the studies contained in Op. 25.  And about the last-mentioned opus we read in a critical notice by Schumann, who had, no doubt, his information directly from Chopin:  “The studies which have now appeared [that is, those of Op. 25] were almost all composed at the same time as the others [that is, those of Op. 10] and only some of them, the greater masterliness of which is noticeable, such as the first, in A flat major, and the splendid one in C minor [that is, the twelfth] but lately.”  Regarding the Trois nouvelles Etudes without opus number we have no similar testimony.  But internal evidence seems to show that these weakest of the master’s studies—­which, however, are by no means uninteresting, and certainly very characteristic—­may be regarded more than Op. 25 as the outcome of a gleaning.  In two of Chopin’s letters of the year 1829, we meet with announcements of his having composed studies.  On the 2Oth of October he writes:  “I have composed a study in my own manner”; and on the 14th of November:  “I have written some studies.”  From Karasowski learn that the master composed the twelfth study of Op. 10 during