performed amid the most enthusiastic applause in London and Paris,
in Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, in Berlin, and all the large and
small cities of Germany. Everywhere it had excited transports of
admiration; everywhere delighted audiences had greeted with
rapturous enthusiasm this beautiful music, so full of holy ardor and
childlike piety, this great work of the German composer, Joseph
Haydn.

To-day the twenty-fifth performance of "The Creation" was to take
place at Vienna, and Joseph Haydn himself was to be present at the
concert. The committee of arrangements had invited him, and he had
accepted the invitation. Although his seventy-seven years were
resting heavily on his head, and had paralyzed his strength, be
could not withstand the honorable request of his friends and
admirers, and he had replied with a touching smile to the committee
of arrangements, whose delegates had conveyed the invitation to him
"I shall come to take leave of the world with my 'Creation,' and bid
a last farewell to my dear Viennese. YOU will often yet sing my
'Creation,' but I shall hear it for the last time!"

"For the last time!" These were the words which had thrilled all the
friends and admirers of the maestro, and filled them with the ardent
desire to greet him once more, and render him homage for the last
time. For all felt and knew that Haydn had spoken the truth, and
that his end was drawing near. All, therefore, longed to take part
in this last triumph of the composer of "The Creation," whom death
had already touched with its inexorable finger.

Hence, there was a perfect jam in front of the university building;
the equipages of the high nobility formed two immense lines down the