Scotland: its scenery, its history, its music, all supplied food for
his various tastes. With a poetic appreciation of the beauties of
nature, he desired no greater pleasure than to wander in perfect
freedom among our lochs and hills; and his descriptions of Edinburgh,
the Highlands, and Western Islands, which appeared in the _Augsburg
Gazette_, have brought some and inspired more with the wish to visit
the Switzerland of Britain. The history and music of Scotland threw
fresh light upon each other under his researches. He delighted to
trace the reciprocal influence of national events and national music,
from the time of the Culdee establishments of the sixth century, when
'Iona was the Rome of the north,' down to the _Covenanter's Lament_,
and the Jacobite songs of the last century. Since these days, the
spirit that invented and handed down popular song has passed away with
the national and clannish feuds which gave rise to the gathering song
and the lament. The age of peace has been heralded in by the songs of
Burns and Lady Nairne, the authoress of _The Land o' the Leal_, who
has done much to restore the taste for our beautiful old melodies, by
wedding them to pure and appropriate verse.[2]

In such pursuits, Mainzer--by this time dubbed doctor by a German
university--passed five years very pleasantly, but, in a worldly point
of view, very unprofitably. He had failed on first coming to Edinburgh
in obtaining the musical chair, which seemed so appropriate a niche
for him; and however reluctant to leave his favourite normal classes
and his adopted home, still when he looked to the future, he was
compelled to think of leaving Edinburgh--for the German proverb still
held true: 'Kunst geht nach brod;' and if man cannot live by bread
_alone_, neither can the artist live _without_ bread! At this
juncture, the Chevalier Neukomm, of European celebrity as a composer
and organist, and a valued friend of Dr Mainzer, came to Edinburgh to