CURRENT LITERATURE.
1 Beethoven, Depicted by his Contemporaries. By Ludwig Nohl. II .Translated from the German by Emily Hill. Of all !the numerous 1 writers on Beethoven, Ludwig Nohl has a claim to be called par zed/once his biographer, not merely because his love for the great aster is intense, his sympathy with him profound, and his compro- ension of him therefore deep and intelligent, but because he has ado his life and character the study of years, sparing neither pains lcr expense to obtain every particle of information which could brow light upon the object of researches, and because, also, he 'rites with a candour that is truly praiseworthy. He has, in fact, baself the artist-nature,—the nature that is never satisfied with its vn work, and is ever desirous of touching and retouching a portrait 'awn from the commencement with scrupulous fidelity ; and thus it lit that having already written a life of Beethoven, and collected his , ters, it occurred to him to take up the idea which Schindler had • ctuly indicated, and Wagner had intended to carry out, and by ihlishing a number of contemporary sketches of Beethoven, all Imo or less inadequate, yet all alike in their tone of admiration nci reverence, to enable us to bring before us, in all its original and ilistinctive features, an image of "ono of Art's true martyrs." The :40ctemporaries to whom we are principally indebted for their remin- iscences of Beethoven are Czerny, Reichardt, Moschelos, Spohr, Weissenbach, Spiher, Rellstab, and Freudenberg, but many others ave also contributed their quotas, and Herr Nohl has really done cod service in gathering thorn into a small and very readable olume.
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