visit to Paris may, indeed, lay claim to a certain aesthetic value, for they are written throughout with visible zest in his own descriptions, and also with wit, and charm, and characteristic energy.  As these combined merits can only become apparent by an ungarbled series of the letters, I have resolved, after many long years of zealous research in collecting them, to undertake the work,—­that is, to publish the letters entire that have come to my knowledge.

It now only remains for me to give some words of explanation as to the method I have pursued in editing them.

In the first place, this edition, (being transcribed closely from the originals,) if compared with the letters already published, will prove that the latter are open to many corrections, both in trivial and more important respects.  I have forborne, however, attracting attention to the deviations from the original text, either in Nissen or Jahn.  I have no wish to be punctilious about trifles, where, as in the case of Jahn, the principal points are correct.  Further, by this faithful production of the letters, (nothing being omitted but the constant repetition of forms of greeting and subscription,) we find many an additional feature in the Maestro’s life, and chiefly various facts with regard to the creation and publication of his works, which may serve to complete and to amend various statements in Dr. Ludwig Ritter von Kochel’s “Chronological Thematic Catalogue of the Musical Compositions of W. A. Mozart,” (Leipzig, Breitkopf and Hartel).  This will be effected not only by the hitherto unpublished letters, though comparatively few in number, but also by passages being given in full, which have been hitherto suppressed as of no consequence.  I have referred to Nissen and Jahn only when, in spite of all my inquiries, I could not discover the proprietor of the original, or procure a correct copy.

I must also remark that all letters without a special address are written to his father.  I have only adhered to Mozart’s defective orthography in his few letters of early date, and in the rest adopted the more modern fashion.  I did so for this simple reason, that these defects form a charm in his juvenile letters, from being in accordance with their boyish contents, while, with regard to the others, they only tend to distract the attention from the substance of the letters, instead of imparting additional interest to them.  Biographers can, and ought always to render faithfully the original writing, because quotations alternate with the text of the biographer; but in a regular and uninterrupted series of letters this attraction must be very sparingly used, or it will have a pernicious effect.

The explanatory remarks, and also the supplementary Lexicon, in which I have availed myself of Jahn’s catalogue, will make the letters more intelligible to the world at large.  The Index, too, has been most carefully prepared to facilitate references.