wonder and rapture. The former laid aside his work; the latter, with her head bent slightly forward, and her hands pressed tightly over her breast, crouched down near the end of the piano, as if fearful lest even the beating of her heart should break the flow of those magical, sweet sounds. It was as if we were all bound in a strange dream and only feared to wake.

11. Suddenly the flame of the single candle wavered, sank, flickered, and went out. Beethoven paused, and I threw open the shutters, admitting a flood of brilliant moonlight. The room was almost as light as before, and the illumination fell strongest upon the piano and player. But the chain of his ideas seemed to have been broken by the accident. His head dropped upon his breast; his hands rested upon his knees; he seemed absorbed in meditation. It was thus for some time.

12. At length the young shoemaker rose, and approached him eagerly, yet reverently. "Wonderful man!" he said, in a low tone, "who and what are you?" The composer smiled. "Listen!" he said, and he played the opening bars of the sonata in F.

13. A cry of delight and recognition burst from them both, and exclaiming, "Then you are Beethoven!" they covered his hands with tears and kisses.

He rose to go, but we held him back with entreaties.

"Play to us once more-only once more!"

14. He suffered himself to be led back tothe instrument. The moon shone brightly in through the window, and lit up his glorious, rugged head and massive figure. "I will improvise a sonata to the moonlight!" said he, looking up thoughtfully to the sky and stars.

15. Then his hands dropped on the keys, and he began playing a sad and infinitely lovely movement, which crept gently over the instrument, like the calm flow of moonlight over the dark earth.

16. This was followed by a wild elfin passage in triple time-a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of sprites upon the sward. Then with a swift agitato finale-a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague, impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in emotion and wonder.

17. "Farewell to you," said Beethoven, pushing back his chair, and turning towards the door-"farewell to you !"

"You will come again?" asked they, in one breath.

18. He paused, and looked compassionately, almost tenderly, at the face of the blind girl. Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "I will come again, and give the fräulein some lessons. Farewell! I will soon come again!"

Their looks followed us in silence more eloquent than words till we were out of sight.

19. "Let us make haste back," said Beetho

ven," that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it."

We did so, and he sat over it till long past day-dawn. And this was the origin of that moonlight sonata with which we are all so fondly acquainted.

THE EXILE OF ERIN.

"Erin go bragh," Ireland

for ever.

num-bers, poetic measures. ma-vour-neen, my dear.

1. There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,

The dew on his thin robe was heavy and

chill;

For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing,

To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,

For it rose o'er his own native isle of the

ocean,

Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion,

He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh.

2. "Sad is my fate!" said the heart-broken stranger;

"The wild deer and wolf to a covert

can flee,

But I have no refuge from famine and danger,

A home and a country remain not to me. Never again in the green, sunny bowers, Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend. the sweet hours,

Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,

And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!

3. "Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,

In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore ; But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken, And sigh for the friends who can meet

me no more!

O cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace, where no perils can
chase me?

Never again shall my brothers embrace me?
They died to defend me, or live to deplore!

4. "Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood?

Sisters and sire, did ye weep for its fall? Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?

And where is the bosom friend, dearer
than all?

O my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure,
Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure?

Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without

measure,

But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.

5. "Yet, all its sad recollections suppressing, One dying wish my lone bosom can

draw,

Erin, an exile bequeathes thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers, Erin go bragh!
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her
motion,

Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the

ocean!

And thy harp-striking bard sings aloud with devotion,

Erin mavourneen, Erin go bragh!

1. The Lakes of Killarney are the most interesting and the most celebrated part of Ireland-a scene which far surpasses in natural beauty aught that nature has supplied elsewhere in Great Britain; for, with scarcely an exception, the devoted worshippers of Loch Katrine, and the fervid admirers of the north