AUBER, THE COMPOSER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 187, 7 September 1871, Page 7

AUBER, THE COMPOSER.

The coffin containing the remains' of Auber, the great composer, which lay in the vault of the Cliurch of the Holy Trinity, at Paris, awaiting the writ of burial, was among the number broken open and flung inV> the street by the Communists. The remains of the composer are lost, the coffin being broken open and the contents merged with the other debris, in an indistinguishable mass. The post mortem fate of Aubor, to be tumbled into a common ditch along with the horrible contents of a charnal house, by a dirty mob, is strangely in contrast with the experience of his life. A man of the most luxurious tastes, he allowed nothing to interfere with the complete sensuous enjoyment which his income, of 30,000 dols. a year, enabled him to secure in Paris. Like Kossim, when his position and fortune were assured, he used both to make his path one of roses. He sedulously shut out every sight and

sound likely to prove disagreeable, surrounded himself with all that is beautiful iv • art, lived delicately and fared sumptously. His stables had the finest horses, and his table the choicest wmes ; his amours were innumerable ; and a str mg constitution carefully preserved, with wonderful good health even to the last of his advanced years, enabled him to live the life of a voluntnary without the physical retribution which attends less selfish and less poised individuals. lie was ihdrougbly philosophical in the pursuit of pleasure, ami no resident of the French capital realised more from its limited resources than the great composer. One can imagine with what horror he would have contemplated such a disposal of his remains — lie, a man who never attended a funeral, and who carefully avoided such gloomy processions in the streets, as likely to interfere with the supreme comforts of mind and body, which he had determined foe himself.