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  CHARLES AUCHESTER

  VOLUME I.

  [Illustration: MENDELSSOHN
   FROM AN ORIGINAL PORTRAIT--1821.]




  CHARLES AUCHESTER

  BY
  ELIZABETH SHEPPARD

  _WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
  BY GEORGE P. UPTON

  AUTHOR OF "THE STANDARD OPERAS," "STANDARD ORATORIOS," "STANDARD
  CANTATAS," "STANDARD SYMPHONIES," "WOMAN IN MUSIC," ETC.

  In Two Volumes

  VOLUME I.

  CHICAGO
  A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
  1891




  COPYRIGHT,
  BY A. C. MCCLURG AND CO.
  A.D. 1891.




INTRODUCTION.


The romance of "Charles Auchester," which is really a memorial to
Mendelssohn, the composer, was first published in England in 1853. The
titlepage bore the name of "E. Berger," a French pseudonym, which for
some time served to conceal the identity of the author. Its motto was
a sentence from one of Disraeli's novels: "Were it not for Music, we
might in these days say, The Beautiful is dead." The dedication was
also to the same distinguished writer, and ran thus: "To the author of
'Contarini Fleming,' whose perfect genius suggested this imperfect
history." To this flattering dedication, Mr. Disraeli replied in a
note to the author: "No greater book will ever be written upon music,
and it will one day be recognized as the imaginative classic of that
divine art."

Rarely has a book had a more propitious introduction to the public;
but it was destined to encounter the proverbial fickleness of that
public. The author was not without honor save in her own country. It
was reserved for America first to recognize her genius. Thence her
fame travelled back to her own home; but an early death prevented her
from enjoying the fruits of her enthusiastic toil. Other works
followed from her busy pen, among them "Counterparts,"--a
musico-philosophical romance, dedicated to Mrs. Disraeli, which had a
certain success; "Rumor," of which Beethoven, under the name of
Rodomant, is supposed to have been the hero; "Beatrice Reynolds,"
"The Double Coronet," and "Almost a Heroine:" but none of them
achieved the popularity which "Charles Auchester" enjoyed. They shone
only by the reflected light of this wonderful girl's first book. The
republication of this romance will recall to its readers of an earlier
generation an old enthusiasm which may not be altogether lost, though
they may smile as they read and remember. It should arouse a new
enthusiasm in the younger generation of music-lovers.

Elizabeth Sheppard, the author of "Charles Auchester," was born at
Blackheath, near London, in 1837. Her father was a clergyman of the
Established Church, and her mother a Jewess by descent,--which serves
to account for the daughter's strong Jewish sympathies in this
remarkable display of hero-worship. Left an orphan at a tender age,
she was thrown upon her own resources, and chose school-teaching for
her profession. She was evidently a good linguist and musician, for
she taught music and the languages before she was sixteen. She had
decided literary ambition also, and wrote plays, poems, and short
stories at an age when other children are usually engaged in pastimes.
Notwithstanding the arduous nature of her work and her exceedingly
delicate health, she devoted her leisure hours to literary
composition. How this frail girl must have toiled is evidenced by the
completion of "Charles Auchester" in her sixteenth year. In her
seventeenth she had finished "Counterparts,"--a work based upon a
scheme even more ambitious than that of her first story. When it is
considered that these two romances were written at odd moments of
leisure intervening between hours of wearing toil in the school-room,
and that she was a mere child and very frail, it will be admitted that
the history of literary effort hardly records a parallel case. Nature
however always exacts the penalty for such mental excesses. This
little creature of "spirit, fire, and dew" died on March 13, 1862, at
the early age of twenty-five.

Apart from its intrinsic merits as a musical romance, there are some
features of "Charles Auchester" of more than ordinary interest. It is
well known that Seraphael, its leading character, is the author's
ideal of Mendelssohn, and that the romance was intended to be a
memorial of him. More thoroughly to appreciate the work, and not set
it down as mere rhapsody, it must be remembered that Miss Sheppard
wrote it in a period of Mendelssohn worship in England as ardent and
wellnigh as universal as the Handel worship of the previous century
had been. It was written in 1853. Mendelssohn had been dead but six
years, and his name was still a household word in every English
family. He was adored, not only for his musical genius, but also for
his singular purity of character. He was personally as well known in
England as any native composer. His Scotch Symphony and Hebrides
Overture attested his love of Scotch scenery. He had conducted
concerts in the provinces; he appeared at