



Produced by Helene de Mink, Bryan Ness, Music transcribed
by Anne Celnick, Linda Cantoni, and the DP Music Team and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the
original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors
have been corrected.




     LETTERS
     OF
     FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY
     FROM
     ITALY AND SWITZERLAND.

     TRANSLATED BY LADY WALLACE.

     WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
     BY JULIE DE MARGUERITTES.

     [Illustration: logo]

     BOSTON:
     OLIVER DITSON & CO., 277 WASHINGTON STREET.
     NEW YORK: C. H. DITSON & CO.




FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.


Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born at Hamburg, on the third of
February, 1809. The name to which he was destined to add such
lustre, was already high in the annals of fame. Moses Mendelssohn,
his grandfather, a great Jewish philosopher, one of the most
remarkable men of his time, was the author of profound Metaphysical
works, written both in German and Hebrew. To this great power of
intellect, Moses Mendelssohn added a purity and dignity of
character worthy of the old stoics. The epigraph on the bust of
this ancestor of the composer, shows the esteem in which he was
held by his contemporaries:

"Faithful to the religion of his fathers, as wise as Socrates, like
Socrates teaching the immortality of the soul, and