SEBASTIAN BACH AND HIS WORKS. 7 



and industry engaged during six entire months, when at length he 

 thouglit himself safely possessed of his treasure ; and, while pleasing 

 himself with the idea of making- good use of it in secret, his brother 

 discovered it, and without pity deprived him of what had cost so 

 much labour. Yet, though his hopes were thus cruelly blighted, 

 his toil was not without its reward. During his solitary moonlight 

 vigils, with no other incentive than his enthusiasm, no other solace 

 than the consciousness of his rising powers, he had been laying the 

 foundation of that mighty edifice which was destined to astonish the 

 world, and to endure, for countless ages, the admiration of all be- 

 holders, the envy and despair of all rivals. 



Shortly after this, being again left destitute by the death of his 

 brother, he went, in company with one of his schoolfellows, to Liin- 

 berg, where he engaged in the choir of St. Michael's School, as a 

 soprano singer. His fine voice procured him here, for a short time, 

 a good salary ; but losing it soon, and not immediately acquiring 

 one equally good in its stead, with it he lost his lucrative situation. 

 His inclination to play on the clavichord and organ was at this time 

 as ardent as in his cai'lier years, and impelled him to see and hear 

 every thing which he thought could, in any way, contribute to his 

 improvement. With this view, he not only went several times from 

 Liinberg to Hamburgh, to hear the celebrated organist John Rein- 

 ken, but also to Zell, in order to become acquainted with the 

 prince's band — which consisted chiefly of Frenchmen — as well as 

 with the French taste, which was then entirely new to him. 



In 1703, when only eighteen years of age, he was made court 

 musician at Weimar. This appointment, however, he exchanged 

 in the following year for that of organist to the New Church at 

 Arnstadt ; probably to follow his inclination for playing on the or- 

 gan with greater facility than he could at Weimar, where he was 

 only engaged to play the violin. Here he began most zealously to 

 make use of all the works for the organ at that time celebrated, for 

 the purpose both of improving himself in the art of playing on that 

 instrument, and in that of composition.* So ardent was his zeal, 

 and so great his resolution to leave nothing undone which could be 

 done towards the furtherance of this object, that he even made a 



■ If musical composition were considered an art instead of a science, we 

 should have, instead of treatises without end and theories witliout number, 

 a more useful, a more practical, musical education. It is through practice 

 alone, not tiirough theory, that art can be improved and elevated. How far 

 the world in general is from this view of the subject it is needless for us to 

 sav. 



