dine out every day," he informs his friends in Germany. Shortly
after his arrival he was conducted by the Academy of Ancient
Music into a "very handsome room" adjoining the Freemasons' Hall,
and placed at a table where covers were laid for 200. "It was
proposed that I should take a seat near the top, but as it so
happened that I had dined out that very day, and ate more than
usual, I declined the honour, excusing myself under the pretext
of not being very well; but in spite of this, I could not get off
drinking the health, in Burgundy, of the harmonious gentlemen
present. All responded to it, but at last allowed me to go home."
This sort of thing strangely contrasted with the quiet, drowsy
life of Esterhaz; and although Haydn evidently felt flattered by
so much attention, he often expressed a wish that he might escape
in order to have more peace for work.

Ideas of London

His ideas about London were mixed and hesitating. He was chiefly
impressed by the size of the city, a fact which the Londoner of
to-day can only fully appreciate when he remembers that in Haydn's
time Regent Street had not been built and Lisson Grove was a
country lane. Mendelssohn described the metropolis as "that smoky
nest which is fated to be now and ever my favourite residence."
But Haydn's regard was less for the place itself than for the
people and the music. The fogs brought him an uncommonly severe
attack of rheumatism, which he naively describes as "English,"
and obliged him to wrap up in flannel from head to foot. The
street noises proved a great distraction--almost as much as they
proved to Wagner in 1839, when the composer of "Lohengrin" had to
contend with an organ-grinder at each end of the street! He