the conversations of musicians to the lectures of professors, he
first neglected and at last altogether abandoned the study of the
healing art. A. Boguslawski, who wrote a biography of Elsner,
tells the story differently and more poetically. When, after a
long illness during his sojourn in Breslau, thus runs his
version, Elsner went, on the day of the Holy Trinity in the year
1789, for the first time to church, he was so deeply moved by the
sounds of the organ that he fainted. On recovering he felt his
whole being filled with such ineffable comfort and happiness that
he thought he saw in this occurrence the hand of destiny. He,
therefore, set out for Vienna, in order that he might draw as it
were at the fountain-head the great principles of his art. Be
this as it may, in 1791 we hear of Elsner as violinist in Brunn,
in 1792 as musical conductor at a theatre in Lemberg--where he is
busy composing dramatic and other works--and near the end of the
last century as occupant of the same post at the National Theatre
in Warsaw, which town became his home for the rest of his life.
There was the principal field of his labours; there he died,
after a sojourn of sixty-two years in Poland, on April 18, 1854,
leaving behind him one of the most honoured names in the history
of his adopted country. Of the journeys he undertook, the longest
and most important was, no doubt, that to Paris in 1805. On the
occasion of this visit some of his compositions were performed,
and when Chopin arrived there twenty-five years afterwards,
Elsner was still remembered by Lesueur, who said: "Et que fait
notre bon Elsner? Racontez-moi de ses nouvelles." Elsner was a
very productive composer: besides symphonies, quartets, cantatas,
masses, an oratorio, &c., he composed twenty-seven Polish operas.
Many of these works were published, some in Warsaw, some in
various German towns, some even in Paris. But his activity as a