through the gardens or listening to music. In summer the children called their journal "The Garden Times," and in winter, "The Snow and Tea Times." Fanny wrote charming poems for this little paper, and each member of the family circle contributed merry thoughts and sad thoughts as well as wise ideas on a great variety of subjects.

One summer Felix and Fanny read a German translation of Shakespeare's poetry. They were delighted with it, and particularly enjoyed "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They read it out of doors under the trees, or with their friends in the pleasant Garden House, and they wrote their thoughts about it in "The Garden Times." Both brother and sister were deeply stirred by the loveliness of Shakespeare's fairy play.

That happened to be an especially beautiful summer. It is no wonder that Felix was inspired by his delightful surroundings. He translated "A Midsummer Night's Dream" into music. At first he wrote it for the piano, and he and Fanny practiced it over and over again in duet form. Then he arranged it for full orchestra.

The chief theme is played by the violins, and the delicate, graceful music gives a picture of the fairies. Contrasting with this is a clumsy, awkward theme which represents some stupid mortals who are straying in the wood where the fairies live. One of these men, a silly fellow named Bottom, loses his way in the wood and

falls asleep. A mischievous fairy claps an ass's head over Bottom's head, and it seems to fit him as well as if it had grown upon his own shoulders.

In Mendelssohn's music, the bassoon brays when Bottom is turned into an ass, and the bass tuba gives a heavy snore when Bottom is sleeping among the fairies. The effect is very comical. It makes us realize that Felix, with all his great talent, was just a light-hearted boy when he wrote this composition.

The first performance was given in the Garden House, before a large audience of friends and acquaintances. Everyone who heard the beautiful new music was surprised and enthusiastic. The next year it was given a public performance.

The "Midsummer Night's Dream" music alone would have been enough to make Felix forever famous,—and it was written when he was only seventeen years old.

FAIRY SONGS FROM SHAKESPEARE'S
"MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM”

Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favors,

In those freckles live their savors.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

This pretty song is sung by Puck, the merriest and most mischievous of the fairies. The "orbs" that he speaks of are "fairy rings," which were supposed to be formed by the fairies dancing in a circle on the grass.

Queen Elizabeth, who was the ruler of England in Shakespeare's day, had a band of military courtiers called pensioners. They were the handsomest and tallest young noblemen that could be found, and they wore splendid uniforms covered with gold lace and jewels. That is why Puck says that the tall yellow cowslips with their red spots are the "pensioners" of the fairy queen.

In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Shakespeare describes the fairy queen's bower. It was a bank where fragrant wild thyme grew, and cowslips and nodding violets, with woodbine and sweet musk-roses forming a canopy. There the queen slept part of every night. She was wrapped in the enameled skin of a snake which, though a tiny coverlet, was wide enough for a fairy.

Before the queen went to bed, she told her fairies how to employ themselves while she slept.

"Some of you," said the queen, "must kill the little worms in the musk-rose buds; some must fight the bats to get their leather wings out of which coats may be made for my small elves; and some of you be sure to keep away the noisy owl that disturbs me every night with his hooting. Now sing me to sleep, and then go about your duties."

So the fairies danced around her, singing this dainty lullaby:

"You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.

"Philomel,* with melody,

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!

Never harm,

Nor spell nor charm,

Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good-night, with lullaby."

*Philomel is a name for the nightingale.

XIX

THE FATHER OF MUSIC

When Mendelssohn was a boy, Sebastian Bach's music had gone out of fashion. Bach was still considered one of the great composers and his works were diligently studied by young musicians, but they were never played in public. Bach was almost forgotten by most people in Germany.

One of Felix's friends said:

"Do you know, Bach's

music seems to me like an exercise in arithmetic?" "Does it?" replied Felix. "I will prove to you, then, that it is not!"

So he found sixteen good singers in Berlin and invited them to meet at his house on Saturday evenings to study Bach's "Passion Music." It was a long, hard task, but Felix was full of enthusiasm. After two years of practice, when his small choir could sing the music well, he determined to give public performances with a large choir.

Old Herr Zelter, Felix's former teacher, was a person of great importance in the musical life of Berlin. Felix and one of his intimate friends called on Zelter to get his consent to a performance of the "Passion Music." They found the old musician sitting with his pipe, in a cloud of smoke. He stared at the two young men.

"Why, how is this?" he cried. "What do two such fine young fellows want with me at this early hour?"