enthusiastic admirer of Mrs Billington there can be no doubt.

Another Romance

There was another intimacy of more import, about which it is
necessary to speak at some length. When Dies published his
biography of Haydn in 1810 he referred to a batch of love-letters
written to the composer during this visit to London. The
existence of the letters was known to Pohl, who devotes a part of
his Haydn in London to them, and prints certain extracts; but the
letters themselves do not appear to have been printed either in
the original English or in a German translation until Mr Henry
E. Krehbiel, the well-known American musical critic, gave them to
the world through the columns of the New York Tribune. Mr
Krehbiel was enabled to do this by coming into possession of a
transcript of Haydn's London note-book, with which we will deal
presently. Haydn, as he informs us, had copied all the letters
out in full, "a proceeding which tells its own story touching his
feelings towards the missives and their fair author." He
preserved them most carefully among the souvenirs of his visit,
and when Dies asked him about them, he replied: "They are letters
from an English widow in London who loved me. Though sixty years
old, she was still lovely and amiable, and I should in all
likelihood have married her if I had been single." Who was the
lady thus celebrated? In Haydn's note-book the following entry
occurs: "Mistress Schroeter, No. 6 James Street, Buckingham
Gate." The inquiry is here answered: Mistress Schroeter was the
lady.

Mistress Schroeter