to add words and arrange the music for chorus.  Nothing he had composed up to this, whether for church or theatre or concert, matched it for a strange blend of the pathetic and the sublime.  Had he died in 1790 his name might have lived by this work alone.  In a style as different from Bach’s and Handel’s as their styles were different from Palestrina’s and Byrde’s, he proved himself one of the mighty brotherhood who knew how to write sacred music.  It was first given with the words at Eisenstadt in 1797, and it is noteworthy that the last time he directed his own music in public, in 1807, it was The Seven Words, and not The Creation nor The Seasons, that was rendered.

This long chapter of Haydn’s life, so uneventful outwardly, was now about to close.  Negotiations had been opened before by Cramer with a view of inducing him to come to London, but nothing came of them.  In 1787 Salomon, an enterprising fiddler, got Bland, a music publisher, to try what could be done.  Bland was unsuccessful, but he got a quartet from Haydn in this wise.  Contrary to his custom of receiving no one until he was completely dressed, wig and all, in the ceremonious eighteenth-century fashion, Haydn was trying to shave when Bland was shown in.  He was also, it would seem, using the Rohrau equivalent for very bad language, for the razor was taking away his serenity of mind and bits of his skin.  “I would give my last quartet for a decent razor!” he exclaimed wrathfully.  Bland ran out and brought back a razor, and it seemed to be a good one, for history, which never lies, says he got the quartet.  In 1790 Salomon made another attempt, this time in person, and was repulsed.  He had got as far as Cologne on his way back to England, when he heard news that sent him flying again to Vienna as fast as wheels and horses’ legs could carry him.

The Esterhazy chapter of Haydn’s life had closed with something of a snap.  On September 28 Prince Nicolaus died.  He had started by being Haydn’s patron and master, but long before the end he had become his friend.  Haydn never dreamed of leaving, never even of going to England on a short visit, without his permission and full approval.  He was put in his grave, and his magnificence would be all unremembered to-day but for his connexion with a great composer.  Haydn had been in the service of him and his predecessor, Prince Anton, just on thirty years.  Haydn himself was now close on sixty years old.  He might have retired now, as a good Kapellmeister should, and lived in obscure comfort for the rest of his days.  The next Prince, another Anton, dismissed the band and singers, but to the annuity of 1,000 florins which Nicolaus had left Haydn he added 400 florins.