nday dinner with the family. Karajan says
that she was an _ausgezeichnete_ singer and pianist.

A deep friendship sprang up at once between them and they corresponded
freely. Haydn's letters to her were published by Nohl, and you may read
them in Lady Wallace's translation. They are full of the most
interesting lights upon Haydn's life and experiences, and are brimful of
affection for Frau von Genzinger. But the husband and the children are
almost always referred to in the letters, and the friendship seems to
have been entirely and only a friendship,--as Schmidt calls it, "_eine
tiefe und zugleich respectvolle Neigung_."

Mr. Upton, who accepts the friendship as "honourable," finds in Frau von
Genzinger the only true feminine inspiration Haydn ever had for
composition. "We owe much of his music to his wife; but the savage and
truculent manner in which she inspired him was not conducive to the best
work of his genius. There is no record that the Polzelli was of any
benefit to him musically; certainly she was not morally."

But there was another woman who idolised Haydn the musician, and with
Haydn the man conducted a quaint and curious love duet embalmed in many
a billet-doux fragrant with charm.

It was not, then, Frau von Genzinger that threatened Polzelli's
supremacy. Nor was it Madame Bartolozzi, for whom Haydn wrote a sonata
and three trios; nor Mrs. John Hunter, who wrote words for many of his
canzonets. Nor yet Mrs. Hodges, for whom he composed, and whom he called
"the loveliest woman I ever saw." Nor yet again the fascinating actress,
Mrs. Billington, of whom the pleasant story is told, that Haydn, when he
went to London, called on Sir Joshua Reynolds at his studio, found him
painting Mrs. Billington as "Saint Cecilia listening to the angels," and
protested gallantly that Reynolds ought to have painted the angels
listening to her. For which sprightliness he received immediately a
fervent hug and a kiss from those so sweet and promiscuous lips. The
skeptics object, that Reynolds exhibited the picture in London in 1790,
a year before Haydn reached London, but it is a shame to spoil a good
and famous story.

The true woman in the case makes her _entree_ in this innocent style:

"Mrs. Schroeter presents her complements to Mr. Haydn, and informs him
that she is just returned to town, and will be very happy to see him
whenever it is convenient to him to give her a lesson.

"James-st., Buckingham gate, Wednesday,