time in his life,
and little opportunity for education; but amid his hard work some
indications of a mischievous boyish spirit are to be found.

In the year 1791, the Elector, as head of the Teutonic Order, had to
be present at a grand conclave at Mergentheim, and thither he resolved
to take his musical and theatrical staff. Two ships were chartered to
convey these gentlemen down the Rhine and Maine, and a very pleasant
excursion, with all sorts of frolics and high revellings, they had of
it. Lux, a celebrated actor, was chosen king of the expedition, and we
find Beethoven figuring among the scullions.

In the autumn of the year following, a visit was paid by Haydn to Bonn
on his return from his second journey to London. The musicians of the
town gave a breakfast at Godesberg in his honor, and here Beethoven
summoned up courage to show the veteran musician a cantata which he
had recently composed. This was warmly praised by Haydn, and probably
about this time arrangements were made for Beethoven to be received
as a pupil by the older master. It is in this period that we must
place a well-known anecdote. The young musician, already famous in his
own neighborhood, was composing, as his custom was, in the wood
outside the city, when a funeral cortege passed him. The priest,
seeing him, instantly checked the dirge which was being chanted, and
the procession passed in solemn silence, "for fear of disturbing him."
In the beginning of November, 1792, the young musician left Bonn for
Vienna, and, as it happened, he never afterward returned to the
familiar scenes of his birthplace.

Beethoven was never a very easy man to get on with, and his
intercourse with Haydn, who used to call him the "Great Mogul," does
not seem to have been the most friendly. He was dissatisfied with the
instruction given him, and suspicions were awakened in his mind that
the elder musician was jealous of him, and did not wish him to
improve. These thoughts were strengthened by the result of a chance
meeting one day, as he was walking home with his portfolio under his
arm, with Johann Schenk, a scientific and thoroughly accomplished
musician. Beethoven complained to him of the little advance he was
making in counterpoint, and that Haydn never corrected his exercises
or taught him anything. Schenk asked to look through the portfolio,
and see the last work that Haydn had revised, and on examining it he
was astonished to find a number of mistakes that ha