Better Berlioz, a French composer, born at Cote Saint Andre, in the department of Isere, Dec. 11, 1808, died in Paris, March 8, 1869. Hi- father, a physician, sent him in early life to study medicine; but his love of music soon led him to abandon that profession and to enter the conservatoire de musiqve. His father now cast him off, and he supported himself as a chorus singer at the gymnase dramatiqve, and studied composition. In 1830, with his cantata Sardanapale, he took the first prize at the conservatoire, entitling him to pursue his studies in Italy for 18 months at the public expense. Returning to Paris, he produced rapidly a number of orchestral works intended to illustrate his proposition that every musical composition should be the expression of some definite thought and have a distinctly marked object. To this kind of composition the name of programme music was given. Berlioz found enemies to his system on every hand, and defended himself against their attacks through the Journal des Debats, by which he was for many years employed as musical critic. He composed several operas, but they were one alter another condemned almost at the first hearing.

His talents, how ever, were not without recognition, for he was not only a member of the academy of fine arts, but also librarian of the conservatoire, officer of the legion of honor, and the recipient of a number of foreign orders. He sought to promulgate his views of composition not only in his own but also in other countries, and for that purpose at various times visited England, Germany, Austria, and Russia, but without any other than a transient effect. He published a treatise on instrumentation which is held in esteem. His principal instrumental works are the overtures to "Waverley," "King Lear," Le Carnival remain, and Les francs huge*, and the symphonies entitled Episode de la rie d'un artiste, Harold en Italie, and Symphonie funebre et triomphale. Among his operas, those most worthy of mention are Benrenuto Cellini and Les Troyens. In 1888 he married Miss Harriot Smithson, an English actress, who died in Paris in 1864. His life was passed in a constant Struggle, through his musical compositions and his writings, to impress his theories upon the world.