I therefore feel assured that quiet and order are now reigning in the orchestra.  This is the result of not making provision in time.  Half a dozen Capellmeisters should always be held in readiness, that, if one fails, another can instantly be substituted.  But where, at present, is even one to be found?  And yet the danger is urgent.  It will not do to allow order, quiet, and good-fellowship to prevail in the orchestra, or the mischief would still further increase, and in the long run become irremediable.  Is there no ass-eared old periwig, no dunderhead forthcoming, to restore the concern to its former disabled condition?  I shall certainly do my best in the matter.  To-morrow I intend to hire a carriage for the day, and visit all the hospitals and infirmaries, to see if I can’t find a Capellmeister in one of them.  Why were they so improvident as to allow Misliweczeck to give them the slip, and he so near too? [See No. 64.] He would have been a prize, and one not so easy to replace, —­freshly emerged, too, from the Duke’s Clementi Conservatorio.  He was just the man to have awed the whole court orchestra by his presence.  Well, we need not be uneasy:  where there is money there are always plenty of people to be had.  My opinion is that they should not wait too long, not from the foolish fear that they might not get one at all,—­for I am well aware that all these gentlemen are expecting one as eagerly and anxiously as the Jews do their Messiah,—­but simply because things cannot go on at all under such circumstances.  It would therefore be more useful and profitable to look out for a Capellmeister, there being none at present, than to write in all directions (as I have been told) to secure a good female singer.

[Footnote:  In order the better to conciliate Wolfgang, Bullinger had been desired to say that the Archbishop, no longer satisfied with Madlle.  Haydn, intended to engage another singer; and it was hinted to Mozart, that he might be induced to make choice of Aloysia Weber; (Jahn, ii. 307.) Madlle.  Haydn was a daughter of Lipp, the organist, and sent by the Archbishop to Italy to cultivate her voice.  She did not enjoy a very good reputation.]

I really can scarcely believe this.  Another female singer, when we have already so many, and all admirable!  A tenor, though we do not require one either, I could more easily understand—­but a prima donna, when we have still Cecarelli!  It is true that Madlle.  Haydn is in bad health, for her austere mode of life has been carried too far.  There are few of whom this can be said.  I wonder that she has not long since lost her voice from her perpetual scourgings and flagellations, her hair-cloth, unnatural fasts, and night-prayers!  But she will still long retain her powers, and instead of becoming worse, her voice will daily improve.  When at last, however, she departs this life to be numbered among the saints, we still have five left, each of whom can dispute