MENDELSSOHN, Moses, an eminent German philosophical writer, was born at Dessau, September 10, 1729, of Jewish parents, whose extreme poverty confined his education to the study of the Hebrew language, the Old Testament, and the writings of Maimonides. The too severe application of the boy caused a nervous disease, the consequences of which he never entirely overcame. At the age of sixteen he proceeded to Berlin, in order to fight his way through the world. Notwithstanding his poverty he eagerly continued his work of self-education; he acquired the Latin language and mathematics, and studied the philosophical systems of Leibnitz and Wolff. Philosophy from that period was his favourite study, which he soon was enabled to pursue at greater leisure by becoming first private tutor, and afterwards clerk and partner, to a prosperous Jewish silk manufacturer of the name of Bernard. In this situation Mendelssohn, by his intelligence and blameless morals, secured the respect and benevolence of Jews as well as Christians with whom he became acquainted. As an excellent chess-player, he was in 1754 introduced to Lessing, an introduction which ripened into an intimate and life-long friendship. Conjointly they published an essay on "Pope as a Metaphysician," 1755, which was soon followed by other literary productions on the part of Mendelssohn. These publications brought him into close and familiar contact with Abbt, Sulzer, and Nicolai, to whose Bibliothek der Schönen Wissenschaften and Literatur-Briefe he became an active and prominent contributor. About the same time he gained the prize of the Berlin Academy by his "Evidence of Metaphysical Science," and was elected a member by the academy. Frederick the Great, however, struck his name from the list, because a Jew was not to be admitted into that learned body. Mendelssohn was indeed urged by Lavater to embrace the christian faith, but refused. On the contrary, he continued his efforts to improve the intellectual and moral condition of his coreligionists, but by his liberal views often gave offence to the orthodox party among them. With respect to his religious persuasions he may be considered as the prototype to his great friend's Nathan. As a philosopher Mendelssohn did not follow any one particular school, but must be characterized as an eclectic. Among all his writings his "Phædo," 1767, ranks highest, and has established his fame as an original thinker and elegant writer. Besides the laurels won in the literary field, Mendelssohn also succeeded in acquiring worldly substance, and left a large family amply provided for. He died on the 4th January, 1786. His collected works were edited by his grandson, G. B. Mendelssohn, Leipsic, 1843-45, 7 vols. His life has been written by several authors in different languages.—K. E.
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix, the musician, was born at Hamburg, February 3, 1809, and died at Leipsic, November 4, 1847. His father, Abraham, a rich banker, was the son of Moses Mendelssohn noticed above; and upon his marriage and conversion to Christianity he took the name of Bartholdy, the family name of his wife, whose brother filled a diplomatic post in Italy. Felix was the second of four children, the eldest of whom Fanny, was, as a child, not less remarkable than himself for musical capacity; Paul, his younger brother, follows his father's profession; and Rebecca was the youngest of the family. Mendelssohn's infantine sensitiveness to music was very remarkable, and his natural disposition for the art was carefully nurtured by his mother, with whose judicious teaching, and with his sister's example, he had the best possible foundation for his course of study. In 1812 the family removed to Berlin, where their home was the resort of men most distinguished in all departments of intellectual attainment. After a time Mendelssohn was placed under the tuition of Berger for the pianoforte, and Zelter for composition. The rapidity of his progress under both these masters was extraordinary—under the latter, marvellous. He made his first public appearance as a pianist in 1817, when he played Dussek's Military Concerto. At the beginning of May, 1821—he had but recently completed his twelfth year—Jules Benedict went to see him, and found him at work upon his first published pianoforte Quartet (that in C minor) which he waited to finish before he would join his visitor at a game in the garden; but this once entered upon, he was as perfect a child in his romp, as he just proved himself a genuine artist in his labour. Zelter, in his correspondence with Göthe, wrote with rapture of the astonishing powers of his young pupil; the poet philosopher was so warmly interested by his enthusiasm, that he invited Mendelssohn to visit him at Weimar, in November, 1821, and verified by his own observation all that had been told him of the wonderful boy. Mendelssohn attached the greatest importance to this visit, ascribing to Göthe's influence upon him his own veneration for art, and devotion to its highest interests. In acknowledgment of Göthe's concern in his welfare, Mendelssohn dedicated to him his first publications—the three pianoforte Quartets, one of which has already been mentioned. Moscheles visited Berlin in 1824, when for the time the youthful wonder was placed under his instruction; the unbroken friendship between him and his pupil dates from this occasion. Distrustful of the praises of his teachers, Mendelssohn's father took him to Paris, in the spring of 1825, to obtain the judgment of Cherubini, upon the desirability of allowing him to dedicate his whole energies to the study of an art, upon which he had no need to depend as a profession; the veteran musician perceived the present powers and the far greater promise of the boy, and his advice assured the wary father in the course he was pursuing. In the autumn of this year, the opera of "Die Hochzeit des Camacho" was publicly performed at Berlin. Though the first that was brought before the world, this was by no means the first work of its class that Mendelssohn wrote—a fact which, if it lessen our amazement at the maturity of this boyish production, increases our admiration of the fertility of those precocious powers, that had so early given him experience. The opera was received with applause, but was depreciated by the journals, which occasioned its withdrawal from the theatre, and planted in Mendelssohn a dislike for Berlin that ever increased in him. In November, 1826, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn played to Moscheles, who then revisited Berlin, a pianoforte arrangement of the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream; that named (after two little poems of Göthe, which it illustrates) The Calm of the Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage, was already written, and the Octet in E flat was composed a year before. The history of music presents not another instance of such precocious maturity as is evinced in these three astonishing productions; all consideration of the extreme youthfulness of the composer gives way to wonder at the profound mastery proved in the development of the ideas, the equal originality and beauty of the ideas themselves, their perfect individuality to Mendelssohn, and the many daring but successful novelties in harmony and instrumentation, which make these works of a boy subjects of grave study to most accomplished musicians; and we have acknowledged a small part of their merit only, in speaking of technical excellence, while their fully embodied poetical purpose (in the two overtures especially) exalts them still higher as works of art. Among the many circumstances that conduced to draw out the best qualities of Mendelssohn's mind, was the careful direction of his studies to subjects out of his own art, which gave a constant freshness to the pursuit of this whenever he returned to it, and at the same time developed and refined his general intelligence. In 1827 and 1828 he was a student in Berlin university; and while there, he made a metrical version of Terence's Andria (the first that had been written in the German language), which he sent as a present to Göthe.
Moscheles, then resident in London, and Klingemann, another friend of Mendelssohn, who was attached to the Prussian embassy in this country, urged him to come to England; and his own inclinations concurring with their advice, he made his first visit here in 1829, arriving early in April. Hitherto his rare talents were little known beyond the limited though wide circle of his father's connection, and it is from their public recognition in London, that his universal reputation is first to be dated. His performance of Mozart's Concerto in D minor, with extempore cadences, and the production of his own Symphony in C minor, both at concerts of the Philharmonic Society, drew forth the wondering praises of all musicians. With a view to the republication of his Symphony, it being already printed in Germany, in order to establish a new copyright he now inserted, in place of the original minuet, the scherzo from his Octet, which he orchestrated for the Philharmonic concert. At the rehearsal, the band was so delighted with this most remarkable movement, that they insisted on repeating it—a truly unique occurrence—and at the concert the audience followed their example by redemanding its performance. On midsummer-night, at the benefit concert of Drouet the flute-player, was first performed the immortal overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, the key-stone of its author's reputation, and the impression it made was deep as it was instantaneous. The overture
