of the life of Berlioz is a sad one—a story of
defiance, followed by bitterness; but it is a
story well worth being narrated, and taken
to heart by every one concerned in such
excitements as those to which his existence was
devoted. A man more gifted (under restriction),
and more perverse (without restriction),
could hardly be named as belonging to that
company of unhappy musicians which includes
the names of such sufferers as Beethoven,
Schumann, and Böhner. There are few, if any,
survivors who can be distressed by the leading
facts of his life being recounted plainly, yet in
all tenderness to an unhappy man whose
restless life has closed.

He was born, say the French obituary
notices, at the Côte Saint André (department
of L'Isere) on the 11th of December, 1803.
His father, a physician of repute, tried to coerce
or persuade the boy to embrace his own
profession. It was all in vain. The boy had no
vocation for "the healing art"—some instincts,
obviously, for Music, but neither that patient
and persistent humility, nor that brilliancy of
instinctive genius, out of either of which a great
career may be made. The extreme crudity of his
first compositions is warrant for the slenderness
of his knowledge no less than his audacity.
And yet we are assured that, on his escape to
Paris, he studied under that most formal of
theorists, Reicha. For a time, we now learn, he
figured as a chorister at the Opéra Comique,
probably enduring much privation. He gained
admittance to the Conservatoire in 1826. After
producing his overture to Waverley, and a
portentous piece of pompous cacophony, the
symphony entitled Episode dans la vie d'un Artiste,
he put forth a cantata on the subject of
Sardanapalus. This gained the prize which entitled
him, as Laureate, to a couple of years' residence
and study at Rome. What he learned—or,
rather, say, what he failed to learn—in Italy he
has told, in the language of derision, in his
Reminiscences. How different in this was he from
Mendelssohn, who, in the writer's presence, on
hearing musical Rome and the doings in Rome
derided, said: "Well, but for the artist there is
always Rome to be learned." And yet that
Berlioz was as sensible of the influences of the
atmosphere of the Eternal City as was the more
genial and grateful Prussian, his own writings
show unmistakably. His best inspirations are
clearly referable to his sojourn in the south, such
as his overture to Le Carnaval Remain, his March
of Pilgrims in the Abruzzi, and his entire opera
Benvenuto Cellini. From Rome Berlioz brought,
as fruits of his residence there, his strange
overture to King Lear, and a symphony entitled
Return to Life. Among the writer's first musical
recollections are the astonishment and derision
which these inspired on their assaulting the
prudish and pedantic connoisseurs of Paris, who
were even then reluctantly annealing their ears
to receive, without a shiver of disgust, the
compositions given out by Beethoven in his golden
prime. It maybe, however, that one so presumptuous
as young Berlioz fancied that it was better
to be talked about, it matters not how, than to be
passed over, as a respectable mediocrity. But no
other instance could be named in the annals of
Music of a like intrepidity (to use the gentlest
of epithets) at the outset of any artist's career.
How, little by little, Berlioz gained a certain
hold on French curiosity, cannot be told in
detail here; no small part of his advancement
must be ascribed to the sharpness of his tongue,
and (so soon as he entered on journalism)
to the poignancy of his pen. Further, his
intellect and poetical sympathy with other
subjects than music, were quick, and directed to
original forms of research and exercise. Foremost
among these must be noted, as a marked
characteristic, that enthusiastic profession of
devotion to Shakespeare, which had a large
influence on his life and writings. This was
evidenced at an early period of his career. A
company of English actors was then
endeavouring to introduce our dramatist's plays to a
sound appreciation in Paris. At the head of the
troop was Miss Smithson. With her the young
Frenchman fell passionately in love. His suit
was coldly received by our tragedy queen, then
in the hey-day of her fame. Miss Smithson's
career as an actress, however, was cut short by a
severe personal accident. On this the constant
enthusiast came gallantly forward and renewed
his addresses. They were listened to the second
time, and Berlioz carried off the prize for which
he had so earnestly longed. The marriage was
not a happy one, and the unhappiness brought
on consequences of estrangement and entanglement
which spoiled the later years of the artist.
His second wife was Mademoiselle Recio, of the
Opéra Comique—a nullity in point of musical
and dramatic power, whom few frequenters of
that theatre can recollect ever to have seen or
heard of. The second marriage proved no
happier for the composer than his first had been.

His life was further marked by incidents and
associations, strange as belonging to one so
severe, and so critical, and who so vehemently
denounced everything like charlatanry. It
is singular that a man like Paganini, whose
music is so regular in its southern ordinance,
and who was notoriously miserly and reserved,
should have been so bewitched by the young
Frenchman's eccentricities, as to attest his
delight by making him a magnificent present of
money. This, it may be added, could not have
arrived more opportunely. A large portion of
the donation was spent in the production of his
Romeo and Juliet symphony. Later when M.
Berlioz was in England, he associated himself
to a charlatan, in his sphere, as pretending as
the professed artist—the never-to-be-forgotten
Jullien. The same irregularity was to be
traced in other of his friendships and professed
antipathies.

It is impossible to offer anything like a
complete list of his works. It comprises three
grand symphonies: L'Episode dans la vie d'un
Artiste, Harold in Italy, and, best, longest,
and latest of the three, the Romeo and Juliet
symphony, which, like Beethoven's ninth
symphony, is partially choral. There is more than
one grand mass; there are several overtures
from his pen. There are three operas: Benvenuto
Cellini, Beatrice et Benedict (noticeable