SEBASTIAN BACH AND HIS WORKS. 11 



beautiful still, to watch the development of the " human form 

 divine" in its advance from helpless, shapeless infancy to the spring, 

 tide of youth and beauty, a being but a little lower than the angels 

 — the most perfect of his Creator's visible works. How far more 

 beautiful, then, than either, to mark the progress of mind, the 

 image and reflex of that Creator, from its first timid and unequal 

 flight, to its subsequent sublime soarings in the ethereal regions of 

 boundless space, of infinite perfection — the foretaste of what every 

 one shall enjoy in an ever-happy, ever-during world ! The work 

 which assists us in researches of this nature, does more for human 

 im})rovement, for human happiness, than thousands of the aimless, 

 and therefore abortive, attempts of the present day, which men in 

 their ignorance and their folly designate as art. 



In the absence of a guide, such as we have referred to, we must 

 rest satisfied with the sources of information and enlightenment 

 which lie before us. Of all Sebastian Bach's voluminous works, 

 we are as yet acquainted with eleven only, besides the preludes and 

 fugues for the organ, now publishing in this country. Of these 

 latter we shall merely say, that, exhibiting as they do a mastery 

 over the art, unattained by any but our author, yet many of them 

 bear faint traces only of the excellence at which he arrived during 

 the last twenty years of his life : we therefore refer them to a time 

 when his powers were already gigantic, but his judgment yet un- 

 matured.* 



• On this subject Forkel observes : — " Only uninterrupted practice can 

 lead to true excellence. But if we were to pronounce all the works pro- 

 duced during this practice to be master-pieces, because master-pieces at 

 length proceed from it, we should greatly err. This is the case with Bach's 

 works. Though we find, in his earlier attempts undeniable evidences of a 

 distinguished genius, yet they contain at the same time so much that is use- 

 less, poor, and extravagant, that they are not worth preserving — at least for 

 the public in general; and, at most, may be interesting to the connoisseur 

 who wishes to make himself acquainted with the course which such a genius 

 has followed from the commencement of its career. For the separation of 

 these attempts, or juvenile exercises, from the real master-pieces. Bach has 

 liimself given us two means, and we have a third in the art of critical compa- 

 rison. At the appearance of his first work he was above forty years of age. 

 What he himself, at so mature an age, judged worthy of publication, has cer- 

 tainly a presumption in its favour that it is good : we may therefore consider 

 all the works which he himself had engraved to be extremclj' good. Willi 

 resjicct to those among his compositions which circulate only in manuscrij)!, 

 and which are by far llie greatest number, we must have recourse, in order 

 to know what is worth preserving, jjartly to critical conijiarison, partly to the 

 sound means wiiich Bacii has given us. Like all really great gcniubcs, he 



