reaching manhood just when the upset of the French Revolution was destroying all old-world notions.  Even in old-fashioned Germany the Rights of Man were asserting themselves.  In England, for many a long day afterwards, the musician had no higher standing than Haydn had.  The few who mixed with the Great were mainly charlatans of the type of Sir George Smart, and they took mighty pains to be of humble behaviour in the presence of their betters.

Haydn did remarkably well in the petty pigtail courts of Austria.  He probably considered himself lucky, and he was lucky—­he was always lucky.  He got invaluable experience with Porpora, and was presented to many personages in the gay world.  He met Gluck, who a little later was quite inaccessible to the most pushful of young men; also Dittersdorf and Wagenseil, who, whatever we may think of them, were very high and unapproachable musicians in their time.  He worked with unflagging diligence, and the natural instinct of his genius drove him to the works of Emanuel Bach, which he now possessed.  He also bought theoretical books, prizing chiefly the Gradus of old Fux.  So he mastered the groundwork of his art.  Gluck advised him to go to Italy, but it is hard to imagine what he could have learnt there.  He did not fail to profit by an introduction to one Karl (etc.) von Fuernberg, one of the old stamp of wealthy patrons of musicians.  They loved to “discover” rising talent, did these ancient, obsolete types of amateurs of art.  They were as proud of a brilliant protege as a modern literary critic is when he “discovers” a new minor poet.  Von Fuernberg did his best for Haydn.  He enabled him to write the first eighteen quartets; he helped him to get better terms for teaching—­five florins a month instead of two.  Through von Fuernberg or some one else he got to know the Countess Thun, who loved to play the friend to struggling genius.  Finally, he was presented to Count Morzin, who, in 1759, appointed him as his composer and bandmaster.  The band was small and the pay was small, but it placed Haydn in an assured position.  He had a band to practise on, and he soon wrote his first symphony.  Count Morzin’s home was at Lukavec.  Here incessant concerts, vocal and instrumental, were given.  Trios, quartets, symphonies, concertos, divertimentos—­all kinds of compositions, and plenty of them, were required of Haydn, who must have had his hands everlastingly full.

He now evidently thought the days of his apprenticeship over, and proceeded at once to make a thorough fool of himself—­as I have said, for the only time in his life.  He was friendly with the family of a wig-maker named Keller, and gave lessons to his two daughters.  He fell in love with the younger.  That might have been well enough.  But the girl elected to become a nun, and Haydn, either of his free and particularly asinine will, or through persuasion, married the elder, Anne Marie, on November 26, 1760.  He was fully aware that his master, Count Morzin,