The same industry and application which we have found to be necessary in order to acquire excellence in painting and sculpture, are equally required in the sister art of music - the one being the poetry of form and colour, the other of the sounds of nature.
Handel was an indefatigable and constant worker; he was never cast down by defeat, but his energy seemed to increase the more that adversity struck him. When a prey to his mortifications as an insolvent debtor, he did not give way for a moment, but in one year produced his 'Saul,' 'Israel,' the music for Dryden's 'Ode,' his 'Twelve Grand Concertos,' and the opera of 'Jupiter in Argos,'
among the finest of his works. As his biographer says of him, "He braved everything, and, by his unaided self, accomplished the work of twelve men."Haydn, speaking of his art, said, "It consists in taking up a subject and pursuing it." "Work," said Mozart, "is my chief pleasure." Beethoven's favourite maxim was, "The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.'" When Moscheles submitted his score of 'Fidelio'
for the pianoforte to Beethoven, the latter found written at the bottom of the last page, "Finis, with God's help." Beethoven immediately wrote underneath, "O man! help thyself!" This was the motto of his artistic life. John Sebastian Bach said of himself, "I was industrious; whoever is equally sedulous, will be equally successful." But there is no doubt that Bach was born with a passion for music, which formed the mainspring of his industry, and was the true secret of his success. When a mere youth, his elder brother, wishing to turn his abilities in another direction, destroyed a collection of studies which the young Sebastian, being denied candles, had copied by moonlight; proving the strong natural bent of the boy's genius. Of Meyerbeer, Bayle thus wrote from Milan in 1820:- "He is a man of some talent, but no genius; he lives solitary, working fifteen hours a day at music." Years passed, and Meyerbeer's hard work fully brought out his genius, as displayed in his 'Roberto,' 'Huguenots,' 'Prophete,' and other works, confessedly amongst the greatest operas which have been produced in modern times.
Although musical composition is not an art in which Englishmen have as yet greatly distinguished themselves, their energies having for the most part taken other and more practical directions, we are not without native illustrations of the power of perseverance in this special pursuit. Arne was an upholsterer's son, intended by his father for the legal profession; but his love of music was so great, that he could not be withheld from pursuing it. While engaged in an attorney's office, his means were very limited, but, to gratify his tastes, he was accustomed to borrow a livery and go into the gallery of the Opera, then appropriated to domestics.
Unknown to his father he made great progress with the violin, and the first knowledge his father had of the circumstance was when accidentally calling at the house of a neighbouring gentleman, to his surprise and consternation he found his son playing the leading instrument with a party of musicians. This incident decided the fate of Arne. His father offered no further opposition to his wishes; and the world thereby lost a lawyer, but gained a musician of much taste and delicacy of feeling, who added many valuable works to our stores of English music.
