The Rudolfinum, Conservatory Of Music And Art Museum.

A national proverb says that every Czech is born with a violin in his hand! Certainly some of the virtuosi whom this Conservatory has graduated would seem to justify the proverb's truth, for among them are the brothers Ondricek, Kocian, and Kubelik. The history of Czech music, thus suggested, is extremely interesting. Like most of their Slav kinsmen, the Bohemians are wonderfully gifted musically. Their fine religious chants date from remote antiquity, and were especially popular during the period of the Hussite wars. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Francois Dussek was one of Prague's most celebrated pianists. His wife, too, was an accomplished singer. Into this musical family Mozart loved to come, and he resided with these friends whenever he visited the Bohemian capital. In fact, in the home of the Dusseks, now called the Villa Ber-tranka, in the environs of Prague, Mozart composed the greater part of his opera of "Don Giovanni".

It was in Prague, on the 29th of October, 1787, that the first performance of that immortal work took place, and his "Marriage of Figaro" had been given there also in the previous year. The number of musicians that Bohemia has produced is most remarkable. It would be difficult to find in any part of the world an orchestra of importance which did not have at least a few Bohemians among its members.

The National Museum.

The list of musical directors, too, whom she has exported to different countries, would be a long one. In the last century Zelenka held an honorable place at Dresden, and Joseph Slavic was esteemed a formidable rival of the "wizard" Paganini. In recent times, Smetana, who is considered to have been the founder of Bohemian dramatic music, and one of whose pupils was Christine Nilsson, was greatly honored during his life, and at his death in Prague, in 1883, received an almost national funeral. Another well-known Czech composer was Dvorak, who was for a time the director of the Conservatory of New York, and whose great opera "Dmitri," as well as his Slavic dances and his symphonies, have been universally admired. It is, in this connection, worth recording that it was Bohemia- proverbially a land of dances - that gave to a delighted world the polka, often erroneously attributed to Poland. Its name, indeed, is derived from the Czech word pulka, meaning half, because it is danced in two-four time, with a decided accent on the third beat. The first musician to write this music was Joseph Neruda, who had seen a peasant girl singing and dancing the polka, and noted both the tune and steps. It was introduced thus into Prague in 1835, and spread thence to Vienna and Paris, England and America, everywhere taking the public by storm.

Prague is preeminently picturesque. It has been called "The Northern Rome " because, like the great city of the Caesars, it is seated upon seven hills. Humboldt preferred to it only the ocean cities, - Constantinople, Naples, and Lisbon. Of inland European capitals, it is easily the handsomest. From immemorial times the hill which chiefly dominates the town has worn a castle for a crown. The name of this elevation, the Hrad-schin, is difficult to pronounce, but not to understand. Hrad signifies a castle; and, with its second syllable, the word denotes the quarter of the city where the castle stands. There are few nobler sites than that of this Bohemian acropolis. Upon its crest a multitude of towers, turrets, pinnacles, and spires etch their silhouettes against the sky, like the mirage of an ideal Gothic city, a vision such as Turner might have painted in his happiest mood. Like Moscow's Kremlin, the Hradschin is the core of the Czech capital. Within its walls are the imperial palace, - residence of emperors who rarely come - and the cathedral, - resting-place of kings who never go.

The first consists of an enormous mass of structures built around four spacious courtyards. In one of these areas were held, in early times, the first assemblies of Bohemian nobles. On such occasions there was placed between the royal residence and the house of God a plain stone throne, --crude symbol of the king's divine vice-regency. The first and last impression made upon me by this range of buildings was a feeling of immensity. Even the Winter Palace of the Tsar had not appeared to me so overpowering in its dimensions. This is clue partly to the fact that the arrangement of its various sections, built by different sovereigns, is confusing; but chiefly to its mournful emptiness. Of all its seven hundred and eleven rooms the great majority are unoccupied. Once filled with life and animation, and brilliant with political importance, they now are silent and deserted. The stately hall, where the Bohemian kings received the homage of their subjects and of foreign embassies, now echoes only to the footsteps of the passing traveler. Even the faces of the palace guardians wear a look of melancholy. In these immense and lonely corridors I felt

"like one

Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed".