English Music about 1791--Salomon--Mozart and Haydn--Terms for London--Bonn and Beethoven--Haydn Sea-Sick--Arrives in London-- An Enthusiastic Welcome--Ideas of the Metropolis--At Court-- Unreasoning Rivalries--Temporarily eclipsed--Band and Baton-- A Rehearsal Incident--Hanover Square Rooms--Hoops and Swords-- The "Surprise" Symphony--Gallic Excitement--New Compositions-- Benefit and Other Concerts--Haydn on Handel--Oxford Doctor of Music--The "Oxford" Symphony-Relaxations--Royalty again--Pleyel --Close of Season--Herschel--Haydn at St Paul's-London Acquaintances--Another Romance--Mistress Schroeter--Love-Letters --Haydn's Note-Book.
English Music about 1791
Haydn came to England in 1791. It may occur to the reader to ask what England was doing in music at that time, and who were the foremost representatives of the art. The first question may be partially answered from the literature of the period. Thus Jackson, in his Present State of Music in London, published the year after Haydn's arrival, remarks that "instrumental music has been of late carried to such perfection in London by the consummate skill of the performers that any attempt to beat the time would be justly considered as entirely needless." Burney, again, in his last volume, published in 1789, says that the great improvement in taste during the previous twenty years was "as different as civilized people from savages"; while Stafford Smith, writing in 1779, tells that music was then "thought to be in greater perfection than among even the Italians themselves." There is a characteristic John Bull complacency about these statements which is hardly borne out by a study of the lives of the leading contemporary musicians. Even Mr Henry Davey, the applauding historian of English music, has to admit the evanescent character of the larger works which came from the composers of that "bankrupt century." Not one of these composers--not even Arne--is a real personality to us like Handel, or Bach, or Haydn, or Mozart. The great merit of English music was melody, which seems to have been a common gift, but "the only strong feeling was patriotic enthusiasm, and the compositions that survive are almost all short ballads expressing this sentiment or connected with it by their nautical subjects." When Haydn arrived, there was, in short, no native composer of real genius, and our "tardy, apish nation" was ready to welcome with special cordiality an artist whose gifts were of a higher order.
Salomon
We have spoken of Haydn's visit as a long-meditated project. In 1787 Cramer, the violinist, had offered to engage him on his own terms for the Professional Concerts; and Gallini, the director of the King's Theatre in Drury Lane, pressed him to write an opera for that house. Nothing came of these proposals, mainly because Haydn was too much attached to his prince to think of leaving him, even temporarily. But the time arrived and the man with it. The man was Johann Peter Salomon, a violinist, who, having fallen out with the directors of the professional concerts, had started concerts on his own account.
Salomon was a native of Bonn, and had been a member of the Electoral Orchestra there. He had travelled about the Continent a good deal, and no one was better fitted to organize and direct a series of concerts on a large scale. In 1790 he had gone abroad in search of singers, and, hearing of the death of Prince Esterhazy, he set off at once for Vienna, resolved to secure Haydn at any cost. "My name is Salomon," he bluntly announced to the composer, as he was shown into his room one morning. "I have come from London to fetch you; we will settle terms to-morrow."
The question of terms was, we may be sure, important enough for Haydn. But it was not the only question. The "heavy years" were beginning to weigh upon him. He was bordering on threescore, and a long journey in those days was not to be lightly undertaken. Moreover, he was still, nominally at least, the servant of Prince Anton, whose consent would have to be obtained; and, besides all this, he was engaged on various commissions, notably some for the King of Naples, which were probably a burden on his conscience. His friends, again, do not appear to have been very enthusiastic about the projected visit. There were Dittersdorf and Albrechtsberger, and Dr Leopold von Genzinger, the prince's physician, and Frau von Genzinger, whose tea and coffee he so much appreciated, and who sent him such excellent cream. Above all, there was Mozart--"a man very dear to me," as Haydn himself said.
Mozart and Haydn
He had always greatly revered Mozart. Three years before this he wrote: "I only wish I could impress upon every friend of mine, and on great men in particular, the same deep musical sympathy and profound appreciation which I myself feel for Mozart's inimitable music; then nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers. It enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart is not yet engaged at any Imperial Court! Forgive my excitement; I love the man so dearly." The regard was reciprocal. "Oh, Papa," exclaimed Mozart, when he heard of Haydn's intention to travel, "you have had no education for the wide, wide world, and you speak too few languages." It was feelingly said, and Haydn knew it. "My language," he replied, with a smile, "is understood all over the world." Mozart was really concerned at the thought of parting with his brother composer, to whom he stood almost in the relation of a son. When it came to the actual farewell, the tears sprang to his eyes, and he said affectingly: "This is good-bye; we shall never meet again." The words proved prophetic. A year later, Mozart was thrown with a number of paupers into a grave which is now as unknown as the grave of Moliere. Haydn deeply lamented his loss; and when his thoughts came to be turned homewards towards the close of his English visit his saddest reflection was that there would be no Mozart to meet him. His wretched wife had tried to poison his mind against his friend by writing that Mozart had been disparaging his genius. "I cannot believe it," he cried; "if it is true, I will forgive him." It was not true, and Haydn never believed it. As late as 1807 he burst into tears when Mozart's name was mentioned, and then, recovering himself, remarked: "Forgive me! I must ever weep at the name of my Mozart."
Terms for London
But to return. Salomon at length carried the day, and everything was arranged for the London visit. Haydn was to have 300 pounds for six symphonies and 200 pounds for the copyright of them; 200 pounds for twenty new compositions to be produced by himself at the same number of concerts; and 200 pounds from a benefit concert. The composer paid his travelling expenses himself, being assisted in that matter by an advance of 450 florins from the prince, which he refunded within the year. In order to provide for his wife during his absence he sold his house at Eisenstadt, the gift of Prince Nicolaus, which had been twice rebuilt after being destroyed by fire.
Salomon sent advance notices of the engagement to London, and on the 30th of December the public were informed through the Morning Chronicle that, immediately on his arrival with his distinguished guest, "Mr Salomon would have the honour of submitting to all lovers of music his programme for a series of subscription concerts, the success of which would depend upon their support and approbation." Before leaving for London Haydn had a tiff with the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV, who was then in Vienna. The composer had taken him some of the works which he had been commissioned to write, and His Majesty, thanking him for the favour, remarked that "We will rehearse them the day after to-morrow." "The day after to-morrow," replied Haydn, "I shall be on my way to England." "What!" exclaimed the King, "and you promised to come to Naples!" With which observation he turned on his heel and indignantly left the room. Before Haydn had time to recover from his astonishment Ferdinand was back with a letter of introduction to Prince Castelcicala, the Neapolitan Ambassador in London; and to show further that the misunderstanding was merely a passing affair he sent the composer later in the day a valuable tabatiere as a token of esteem and regard.
Bonn and Beethoven
The journey to London was begun by Haydn and Salomon on the 15th of December 1790, and the travellers arrived at Bonn on Christmas Day. It is supposed, with good reason, that Haydn here met Beethoven, then a youth of twenty, for the first time. Beethoven was a member of the Electoral Chapel, and we know that Haydn, after having one of his masses performed and being complimented by the Elector, the musical brother of Joseph II, entertained the chief musicians at dinner at his lodgings. An amusing description of the regale may be read in Thayer's biography of Beethoven. From Bonn the journey was resumed by way of Brussels to Calais, which was reached in a violent storm and an incessant downpour of rain. "I am very well, thank God!" writes the composer to Frau Genzinger, "although somewhat thinner, owing to fatigue, irregular sleep, and eating and drinking so many different things."
Haydn Sea-Sick
Next morning, after attending early mass, he embarked at 7:30, and landed at Dover at five o'clock in the afternoon. It was his first acquaintance with the sea, and, as the weather was rather rough, he makes no little of it in letters written from London. "I remained on deck during the whole passage," he says, "in order to gaze my full at that huge monster--the ocean. So long as there was a calm I had no fears, but when at length a violent wind began to blow, rising every minute, and I saw the boisterous high waves running on, I was seized with a little alarm and a little indisposition likewise." Thus delicately does he allude to a painful episode.
Arrives in London
Haydn reached London in the opening days of 1791. He passed his first night at the house of Bland, the music-publisher, at 45 High Holborn, which now, rebuilt, forms part of the First Avenue Hotel. Bland, it should have been mentioned before, had been sent over to Vienna by Salomon to coax Haydn into an engagement in 1787. When he was admitted on that occasion to Haydn's room, he found the composer in the act of shaving, complaining the while of the bluntness of his razor. "I would give my best quartet for a good razor," he exclaimed testily. The hint was enough for Bland, who immediately hurried off to his lodgings and fetched a more serviceable tool. Haydn was as good as his word: he presented Bland with his latest quartet, and the work is still familiarly known as the "Rasirmesser" (razor) Quartet. The incident was, no doubt, recalled when Haydn renewed his acquaintance with the music-publisher.
But Haydn did not remain the guest of Bland. Next day he went to live with Salomon, at 18 Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square, which--also rebuilt--is now the warehouse of Messrs Chatto & Windus, the publishers. [See Musical Haunts in London, by F.G. Edwards, London, 1895] He described it in one of his letters as "a neat, comfortable lodging," and extolled the cooking of his Italian landlord, "who gives us four excellent dishes." But his frugal mind was staggered at the charges. "Everything is terribly dear here," he wrote. "We each pay 1 florin 30 kreuzers [about 2s. 8d.] a day, exclusive of wine and beer." This was bad enough.
An Enthusiastic Welcome
But London made up for it all by the flattering way in which it received the visitor. People of the highest rank called on him; ambassadors left cards; the leading musical societies vied with each other in their zeal to do him honour. Even the poetasters began to twang their lyres in his praise. Thus Burney, who had been for some time in correspondence with him, saluted him with an effusion, of which it will suffice to quote the following lines:
Welcome, great master! to our favoured isle,
Already partial to thy name and style;
Long may thy fountain of invention run
In streams as rapid as it first begun;
While skill for each fantastic whim provides,
And certain science ev'ry current guides!
Oh, may thy days, from human suff'rings, free,
Be blest with glory and felicity,
With full fruition, to a distant hour,
Of all thy magic and creative pow'r!
Blest in thyself, with rectitude of mind,
And blessing, with thy talents, all mankind!
Like "the man Sterne" after the publication of Tristram Shandy, he was soon deep in social engagements for weeks ahead. "I could 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 exclaimed in particular against "the cries of the common people selling their wares." It was very distracting, no doubt, for, as a cynic has said, one cannot compose operas or write books or paint pictures in the midst of a row. Haydn desired above all things quiet for his work, and so by-and-by, as a solace for the evils which afflicted his ear, he removed himself from Great Pulteney Street to Lisson Grove--"in the country amid lovely scenery, where I live as if I were in a monastery."
Haydn at Court
For the present the dining and the entertaining went on. The 12th of January found him at the "Crown and Anchor" in the Strand, where the Anacreonatic Society expressed their respect and admiration in the usual fashion. The 18th of the same month was the Queen's birthday, and Haydn was invited to a Court ball in the evening. This was quite an exceptional distinction, for he had not yet been "presented" at Court. Probably he owed it to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. The Prince was a musical amateur, like his father and his grandfather, whose enthusiasm for Handel it is hardly necessary to recall. He played the 'cello--"not badly for a Prince," to parody Boccherini's answer to his royal master--and liked to take his part in glees and catches. Haydn was charmed by his affability. "He is the handsomest man on God's earth," wrote the composer. "He has an extraordinary love for music, and a great deal of feeling, but very little money." These courtesies to Haydn may perhaps be allowed to balance the apparent incivility shown to Beethoven and Weber, who sent compositions to the same royal amateur that were never so much as acknowledged.
But even the attentions of princes may become irksome and unprofitable. Haydn soon found that his health and his work were suffering from the flood of social engagements which London poured upon him. The dinner hour at this time was six o'clock. He complained that the hour was too late, and made a resolve to dine at home at four. He wanted his mornings for composition, and if visitors must see him they would have to wait till afternoon. Obviously he was beginning to tire of "the trivial round."
Unreasoning Rivalries
The Salomon concerts should have begun in January, but London, as it happened, was suffering from one of those unreasoning rivalries which made a part of Handel's career so miserable, and helped to immortalize the names of Gluck and Piccini. It is hardly worth reviving the details of such ephemeral contests now. In the present case the factionists were to some extent swayed by financial interests; to a still greater extent by professional jealousies. The trouble seems to have arisen originally in connection with Gallini's preparations for the opening of a new Opera House in the Haymarket. Salomon had engaged Cappelletti and David as his principal vocalists; but these, it appeared, were under contract not to sing in public before the opening of the Opera House. One faction did not want to have the Opera House opened at all. They were interested in the old Pantheon, and contended that a second Italian Opera House was altogether unnecessary.
Temporarily eclipsed
Salomon's first concert, already postponed to February 25, had been fixed for the 11th of March, on which date David, by special permission, was to appear "whether the Opera house was open or not." The delay was extremely awkward for both Haydn and Salomon, particularly for Haydn. He had been brought to London with beat of drum, and here he was compelled to hide his light while the directors of the professional concerts shot ahead of him and gained the ear of the public before he could assert his superiority. By this time also the element of professional jealousy had come into free play. Depreciatory paragraphs appeared in the public prints "sneering at the composer as 'a nine days' wonder,' whom closer acquaintance would prove to be inferior to either Cramer or Clementi; and alluding to the 'proverbial avarice' of the Germans as tempting so many artists, who met with scanty recognition from their own countrymen to herald their arrival in England with such a flourish of trumpets as should charm the money out of the pockets of easily-gulled John Bull." These pleasantries were continued on rather different lines, when at length Haydn was in a position to justify the claims made for him.
Band and Baton
Haydn, meanwhile, had been rehearsing the symphony for his opening concert. Two points are perhaps worth noting here: First, the size and strength of the Salomon Orchestra; and second, the fact that Haydn did not, as every conductor does now, direct his forces, baton in hand. The orchestra numbered between thirty-five and forty performers--a very small company compared with our Handel Festival and Richter Orchestras, but in Haydn's time regarded as quite sufficiently strong. There were sixteen violins, four tenors, three 'celli, four double basses, flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets and drums.
Salomon played the first violin and led the orchestra, and Haydn sat at the harpsichord, keeping the band together by an occasional chord or two, as the practice then was. Great composers have not always been great conductors, but Haydn had a winning way with his band, and generally succeeded in getting what he wanted.
A Rehersal Incident
An interesting anecdote is told by Dies of his first experience with the Salomon Orchestra. The symphony began with three single notes, which the orchestra played much too loudly; Haydn called for less tone a second and a third time, and still was dissatisfied. He was growing impatient. At this point he overheard a German player whisper to a neighbour in his own language: "If the first three notes don't please him, how shall we get through all the rest?" Thereupon, calling for the loan of a violin, he illustrated his meaning to such purpose that the band answered to his requirements in the first attempt. Haydn was naturally at a great disadvantage with an English orchestra by reason of his ignorance of the language. It may be true, as he said, that the language of music "is understood all over the world," but one cannot talk to an orchestra in crotchets and semibreves.
The Hanover Square Rooms
At length the date of the first concert arrived, and a brilliant audience rewarded the enterprise, completely filling the Hanover Square Rooms, at that time the principal concert hall in London. It had been opened in 1775 by J. C. Bach, the eleventh son of the great Sebastian, when the advertisements announced that "the ladies' tickets are red and the gentlemen's black." It was there that, two years after the date of which we are writing, "Master Hummel, from Vienna," gave his first benefit; Liszt appeared in 1840, when the now familiar term "recital" was first used; Rubinstein made his English debut in 1842; and in the same year Mendelssohn conducted his Scotch Symphony for the first time in England. In 1844 the "wonderful little Joachim," then a youth of thirteen in a short jacket, made the first of his many subsequent visits to London, and played in the old "Rooms."
Hoops and Swords
So much for the associations of the concert hall in which Haydn directed some of his finest symphonies. And what about the audiences of Haydn's time? It was the day of the Sedan chair, when women waddled in hoops, like that of the lady mentioned in the Spectator, who appeared "as if she stood in a large drum." Even the royal princesses were, in Pope's phrase, "armed in ribs of steel" so wide that the Court attendants had to assist their ungainly figures through the doorways. Swords were still being worn as a regulation part of full dress, and special weapons were always provided at a grand concert for the use of the instrumental solo performers, who, when about to appear on the platform, were girt for the occasion by an attendant, known as the "sword-bearer." [See Musical Haunts in London, F. G. Edwards, quoting Dr W. H. Cummings.]
Haydn's first concert, we have said, was an immense success. Burney records that his appearance in the orchestra "seemed to have an electrical effect on all present, and he never remembered a performance where greater enthusiasm was displayed." A wave of musical excitement appears to have been passing through London, for on this very evening both Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres were packed with audiences drawn together by the oratorio performances there. Haydn was vastly pleased at having the slow movement of his symphony encored--an unusual occurrence in those days--and he spoke of it afterwards as worthy of mention in his biography. Fresh from the dinnertable, the audience generally fell asleep during the slow movements! When the novelty of the Salomon concerts had worn off, many of the listeners lapsed into their usual somnolence. Most men in Haydn's position would have resented such inattention by an outburst of temper. Haydn took it good-humouredly, and resolved to have his little joke.
The "Surprise" Symphony
He wrote the well-known "Surprise" Symphony. The slow movement of this work opens and proceeds in the most subdued manner, and at the moment when the audience may be imagined to have comfortably settled for their nap a sudden explosive fortissimo chord is introduced. "There all the women will scream," said Haydn, with twinkling eyes. A contemporary critic read quite a different "programme" into it. "The 'Surprise,'" he wrote, "might not be inaptly likened to the situation of a beautiful shepherdess who, lulled to slumber by the murmur of a distant waterfall, starts alarmed by the unexpected firing of a fowling-piece." One can fancy the composer's amusement at this highly-imaginative interpretation of his harmless bit of waggery.
Gallic Excitement
The same success which attended Haydn's first concert marked the rest of the series. The Prince of Wales's presence at the second concert no doubt gave a certain "lead" to the musical public. We read in one of the Gallic newspapers: "It is truly wonderful what sublime and august thoughts this master weaves into his works. Passages often occur which it is impossible to listen to without becoming excited--we are carried away by admiration, and are forced to applaud with hand and mouth. The Frenchmen here cannot restrain their transports in soft adagios; they will clap their hands in loud applause and thus mar the effect."
In the midst of all this enthusiasm the factionists were keeping up their controversy about the opening of Gallini's Theatre. Gallini had already engaged the services of Haydn, together with an orchestra led by Salomon, but nothing could be done without the Lord Chamberlain's license for the performance of operas. To prevent the issue of that license was the avowed object of the Pantheon management and their friends. The fight was rendered all the more lively when the Court divided itself between the opposing interests. "The rival theatre," wrote Horace Walpole, "is said to be magnificent and lofty, but it is doubtful whether it will be suffered to come to light; in short the contest will grow political; 'Dieu et mon Droit' (the King) supporting the Pantheon, and 'Ich dien' (the Prince of Wales) countenancing the Haymarket. It is unlucky that the amplest receptacle is to hold the minority."
Cantatas, Catches and Choruses
That was how it turned out. The Lord Chamberlain finally refused his license for operatic performances, and Gallini had to be content with a license for "entertainments of music and dancing." He opened his house on the 20th of March, and continued during the season to give mixed entertainments twice a week. Various works of Haydn's were performed at these entertainments, including a cantata composed for David, an Italian catch for seven voices, and the chorus known as "The Storm," a setting of Peter Pindar's "Hark, the wild uproar of the waves." An opera, "Orfeo ed Euridice," to which we have already referred, was almost completed, but its production had necessarily to be abandoned, a circumstance which must have occasioned him considerable regret in view of the store he set upon his dramatic work.
Benefit and Other Concerts
On the 16th of May he had a benefit concert, when the receipts exceeded by 150 pounds the 200 pounds which had been guaranteed. A second benefit was given on May 30, when "La Passione Instrumentale" (the "Seven Words" written for Cadiz) was performed. This work was given again on June 10, at the benefit concert of the "little" Clement, a boy violinist who grew into the famous artist for whom Beethoven wrote his Violin Concerto. On this occasion Haydn conducted for Clement, and it is interesting to observe that Clement took the first violin at the last concert Haydn ever attended, in March 1808.
Haydn on Handel
In the note-book he kept while in London, one of the entries reads: "Anno 1791, the last great concert, with 885 persons, was held in Westminster, Anno 1792, it was transferred to St Margaret's Chapel, with 200 performers. This evoked criticism." Haydn here refers to the Handel Commemoration Festival, the sixth and last of the century. He attended that of 1791, and was much impressed with the grandeur of the performances. A place had been reserved for him near the King's box, and when the "Hallelujah Chorus" was sung, and the whole audience rose to their feet, he wept like a child. "Handel is the master of us all," he sobbed. No one knew the value of Handel's choral work better than Haydn. After listening at the Concert of Antient Music to the chorus, "The Nations tremble," from "Joshua," he told Shield that "he had long been acquainted with music, but never knew half its powers before he heard it, as he was perfectly certain that only one inspired author ever did, or ever would, pen so sublime a composition." [See the Appendix to Shield's Introduction to Harmony.]
Oxford Doctor of Music
Haydn was no Handel, either as man or artist. Handel declined the Doctor of Music degree with the characteristic remark: "What the devil I throw my money away for that the blockhead wish?" Haydn did not decline it, though probably enough he rated the distinction no higher than Handel did. In the month of July he went down to the Oxford Commemoration, and was then invested with the degree. Handel's latest biographer, Mr W. S. Rockstro, says that the Oxford fees would have cost Handel 100 pounds. Haydn's note of the expense is not so alarming: "I had to pay one and a half guineas for the bell peals at Oxforth [sic] when I received the doctor's degree, and half a guinea for the robe." He seems to have found the ceremonies a little trying, and not unlikely he imagined himself cutting rather a ridiculous figure in his gorgeous robe of cherry and creamcoloured silk. At the concert following the investiture he seized the gown, and, raising it in the air, exclaimed in English, "I thank you." "I had to walk about for three days in this guise," he afterwards wrote, "and only wish my Vienna friends could have seen me." Haydn's "exercise" for the degree was the following "Canon cancrizans, a tre," set to the words, "Thy voice, O harmony, is divine."
[figure: a musical score excerpt]
This was subsequently used for the first of the Ten Commandments, the whole of which he set to canons during his stay in London. Three grand concerts formed a feature of the Oxford Commemoration.
The "Oxford" Symphony
At the second of these a symphony in G, written in 1787 or 1788, and since known as the "Oxford," was performed, with the composer at the organ. He had taken a new symphony with him for the occasion, but owing to lack of time for rehearsals, the earlier work was substituted. Of this latter, the Morning Chronicle wrote that "a more wonderful composition never was heard. The applause given to Haydn was enthusiastic; but the merit of the work, in the opinion of all the musicians present, exceeded all praise."
Holiday Relaxations
The London season having now come to an end, Haydn proceeded to recruit his energies by paying visits to distinguished people at their country quarters, taking part in river excursions, picnics, and the like. Prince Esterhazy had sent him a pressing summons to return for a great fete which was being organized in honour of the Emperor, but having entered into new engagements with Salomon and others, he found it impossible to comply. A less indulgent employer would have requited him with instant dismissal, but all that the prince said when they afterwards met was, "Ah, Haydn! you might have saved me 40,000 florins." His longest visit at this time was spent with Mr Brassey, a Lombard Street banker, and ancestor of the present peer. "The banker," he says, "once cursed because he enjoyed too much happiness in this world." He gave lessons to Miss Brassey, and "enjoyed the repose of country life in the midst of a family circle all cordially devoted to him." In November he was the guest at two Guildhall banquets--that of the outgoing Lord Mayor on the 5th and that of his successor on the 9