Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

HENSELT 283
young, to foster in them an enthusiasm for the
beautiful and true, and to strengthen and develop
their individual aptitudes, was his life-task, and
he pursued it with true-hearted devotion to the
very last. Nor did he fail to receive a full meed of
grateful thanks and honourable recognition. Many
signs of distinction were conferred on him, and the
seed which he took such pains to scatter abroad has
borne fruit a hundredfold, which shall witness for
him long after he has passed away. Yet all the
while we cannot forbear to lament that so melodious
a siager should, just as the world had begun to
admire him, have lapsed into prolonged silence,
that the virtuoso and composer should alike have
retired from the scene. He ceased to shower his
rich gifts around, for, from the time that he gave
himself up entirely to teaching, all that he wrote, in-
eluding his numerous arrangements of other com-
posers' works, were, with but a few solitary exceptions,
meant for instructive purposes. We must, furthermore,
lament that one who was so essentially German
in his art, should have withdrawn his genius from his
Fatherland, and lived and worked among a foreign
race for upwards of half a century.
He was born in Schwabach, near Nurenlburg, on
the 12th of May, 1814. His father, a cotton-weaver,
of Saxon extraction, was in narrow circumstances.
The wife of Privy-councillor Flad, who had been a
pupil of Abbe Vogler, fostered his gifts in early years.