visit has been written about a hundred times.  I must touch quickly on the significant incidents.  On March 11 the first of Salomon’s concerts was given in the Hanover Rooms, and the audience was large, fashionable and enthusiastic.  The band, with Salomon, first violin, leading, was constituted thus:  sixteen violins, four violas, eight ’cellos, four basses, flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, and drums—­forty-one all told.  It was this orchestra Haydn wrote his twelve best symphonies for.  He himself directed at the pianoforte, and contemporaries were not wanting to say that at times the effect was somewhat disagreeable.  The first “Salomon set” of symphonies were those in C, D, G (The Surprise or Paukenschlag), the B flat, C minor, and D. All these save the first are dated 1791.

The press, such as it was—­one wonders who wrote the critiques of those days—­was as enthusiastic as the audiences, so every one was pleased.  One of his principal admirers was the “pretty widow.”  The incident was charmingly related by the late Mrs. Craigie in “The Artist’s Life” (Werner Laurie).  The lady was a Mrs. Schroeter, a wealthy widow, who lived in James Street, Buckingham Gate.  Haydn gave her lessons, and appears to have visited her every day; the pair corresponded, and on his second trip to England he took lodgings in Bury Street, apparently to be near her.  She was turned sixty, but Haydn described her in after-years as strikingly handsome.  Whether she was or not, she evidently conquered his hot Hungarian heart, for he said that had he been free he certainly would have married her.  What happened before his final return to Vienna is not known; afterwards there seem to have been no more letters, and only a chance remark shows that he preserved a tender memory of her.  Thank goodness, they could not marry, so the romance is unspotted.

But Haydn had plenty of matters beside love-making to attend to.  One Gallini got a licence to give entertainments in the King’s theatre, and Haydn was engaged to compose, and did compose, for them.  He had also been paid for an opera, Orfeo, and tried to finish it at Lisson Grove, but nothing ever came of it as the enterprise collapsed.  His first benefit concert brought him L350; at the second, given on May 30, in the Hanover Square Rooms, he gave the Seven Words in its original form as a “Passione Instrumentale.”  Then he turned to a little holiday-making.  He had multitudes of friends—­almost chief amongst them being Cramer the younger—­and multitudes of invitations.  In July he went to Oxford, and was given an honorary degree; he directed three orchestral concerts there—­imagine it!—­from the organ.  One of the symphonies played there became known as The Oxford, though it had been written long before.  Prince Anton had invited him to return, but as Haydn had entered into a second contract with Salomon he contrived somehow to prolong his stay in England.  The Prince of