of a donkey, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in
"Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought
continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which
Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the
"Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the
images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that
they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave
each part a superscription thus:

[Sidenote: _The "Pastoral" symphony._]

I. "The agreeable and cheerful sensations awakened by
arrival in the country."

II. "Scene by the brook."

III. "A merrymaking of the country folk."

IV. "Thunder-storm."

V. "Shepherds' song--feelings of charity combined with
gratitude to the Deity after the storm."

In the title itself he included an admonitory explanation which should
have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony; more expression of
feeling than painting." How seriously he thought on the subject we
know from his sketch-books, in which occur a number of notes, some of
which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his
convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are
reprinted in Nottebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir