542 HAYDN &c. George III. and his queen endeavored to persuade him to remain in England ; the uni- versity of Oxford created him doctor of music. All classes vied in testifying their admiration of his genius. His fame preceded him to Vienna, and soon after his return in 1795 he gave a concert, which was crowded to excess, wherein he produced his three new symphonies, and in which the young Beethoven appeared both as composer and virtuoso, and played his own first pianoforte concerto. Haydn was now in Vienna what he had heen in London, the un- rivalled master. He had brought with him from London an English text for an oratorio, prepared by Linley, from Milton's " Paradise Lost," entitled " The Creation." Not ventur- ing to compose so grand a work to an English text, he placed it in the hands of Baron van Swieten, who translated and arranged it in its present form. Twelve persons of the high- est nobility subscribed to the amount of 500 ducats, which they offered him for a compo- sition of the new text. Haydn accepted the proposition, and in the 68th year of his age he completed this magnificent work. It was first produced March 19, 1799. Its great success led Van Swieten to prepare another text from Thomson's " Seasons," which was composed within the next two years, and first produced at Vienna, under the title of Die Jahreszeiten ("The Seasons"), April 24, 1801. This labor had been too great for him, and the barren, unpoetical text had been a source of great trouble and annoyance. Soon after finishing it he felt a feverish attack in his head, and from that time his strength, both mental and physical, sensibly failed. From this period to his death he spent most of his time in his house and garden, which had become one of the principal attractions to strangers in Vienna. On March 27, 1808, he was once more induced to appear in public. It was at a performance of the " Creation," in the great hall of the university. At the famous passage, "and there was light! " in the first chorus, the audi- ence as usual burst into tumultuous applause. Haydn, waving his hand toward heaven, ex- claimed, " It comes from there ! " At the end of the first part he felt it necessary from his great weakness to leave the room ; and as he was borne out in the great chair in which he had sat, he once more, with tearful eyes, turned to the orchestra, and spread out his hands as if to bless them. It was his farewell to the whole world. On May 10, 1809, early in the morning, a corps of the French army advanced toward the suburb Mariahilf of Vienna, not far from Haydn's house. His servants were en- gaged in getting him out of bed and dressing him when four cannon reports shook the house and frightened the domestics. "Children," said Haydn, "fear not; where Haydn is, no misfortune can befall you." But he had hardly spoken these brave words when he himself began to tremble violently. He now declined rapidly, and died May 31, in his 78th year. Gerber's attempt to catalogue Haydn's works fills over 13 octavo pages of his Neues Lexikon, and is far from being complete. Haydn him- self in 1805 was unable to give a complete list of his compositions; he could remember but 118 symphonies, yet Gerber had at that time the themes of 140. His compositions in Eng- land alone filled 768 leaves (1,536 pages) music folio. The following is an abstract of the list which he made out in 1805 for Prof. Bertuch, "of such as he could remember:" 118 sym- phonies, 83 quartets, 24 trios, 19 operas, 5 oratorios, 163 compositions for the baryton, 24 concertos for different instruments, 15 masses, 10 pieces of church music, 44 sonatas for piano- forte, with and without accompaniment, 42 German and Italian songs, 39 canons, 13 vocal pieces for three and four voices, 365 Scotch and English songs arranged with accompaniments, 40 divertimenti for from three to nine instru- ments, four fantasias, capriccios, &c. Haydn will for ever fill a large space in musical his- tory, not only for the magnitude, number, originality, and beauty of his compositions, but as being one of the small number who have made eras in the development of the art. He is the great mentor in the department of or- chestral and chamber music, the father of the modern quartet and its kindred forms, and of the grand symphony. By this it is not meant that orchestras and small companies of per- formers on stringed instruments were unknown before his time, but that he, adopting the sonata form as perfected by Emanuel Bach and intro- ducing it into compositions for the orchestra and chamber, laid the foundation for that won- derful development of instrumental music ex- hibited in his own later compositions and in the works of Mozart, and which reached its climax in the musical "poems" of Beethoven. There are but two names in musical history for which this honor is claimed at the expense of Haydn's fame. The one, San Martini (Sam- martini), belonged to the old Italian school, and if any of his instrumental works belong to the new era, they are those of his later days, when Haydn's influence was already every- where felt. But the fame of Haydn has hardly been seriously claimed for San Martini. Of the other, Boccherini, for whom more serious claims have been urged, it is sufficient to say that when Haydn's quartets were already be- coming known and gaining him a reputation, Boccherini was a child of 13 or 14 years ; that Haydn was already in the service of Prince Esterhazy as chapelmaster when Boccherini's opus L, Sei sinfonie, for two violins, alto and 'cello obbligato (that is, mere quartets) was written ; that Boccherini's first work for more than four instruments a concerto (op. 8) for six instruments obbligati, and six ad lit). was not composed till 1769, before which date at least 18 of Haydn's symphonies and sev- eral of his quartets had been printed in Paris. Haydn thought it unfortunate that circumstances had led him so preponderantly
