m him to play the
clavier and read figured bass, and rendered him valuable aid by copying
music for him.

Soon after the marriage, Bach and his wife started a manuscript music
book, entitled "Clavier Buechlein von Anna Magdalena Bach, Anno 1720." On
the first page was written a playful denunciation of the melancholy and
hostility to art that were so often inculcated by the Calvinism of that
time. This book and another of the kind, which followed it five years
later, are both preserved in the Royal Berlin Library. In them are a
series of clavier pieces, by Bach, Gerhard, and others; a number of
hymns and sacred songs; one of several humourous song's, describing the
reflections of a smoker; and still others, apparently addressed to his
wife, and giving fresh proofs of his devotion to her. Her portrait was
painted by Cristofori, but disappeared after being in the possession of
one of the sons.

As a result of his second marriage, Bach was blessed with thirteen more
children, six sons and seven daughters. All his children loved him, and
his kindness and sincerity enabled him to retain their respect as well
as their affection. In all his activity he was never too busy to save
some time for the family circle, where, in later life, he would take the
viola part in the concerted music that cheered his domestic hearth. It
is sad to think of the poor wife's fate in contrast with so much family
happiness. After Bach's death, in 1750, she struggled bravely to support
her children, but became gradually poorer, and was forced to end her
days in an almshouse, and be buried in a pauper's grave.

Less happy than Bach in his married life was Franz Josef Haydn. After a
boyhood of poverty and struggles, he obtained a position as
Kapellmeister to a Bohemian nobleman, Count Morzin. This post was none
too lucrative, however, for it brought the composer only about one
hundred dollars a year, while his teaching could not have provided him
with much extra wealth, and his compositions brought him nothing. Yet
his financial troubles did not deter him from seeking those of
matrimony, in spite of the fact that Count Morzin never kept married men
in his service. According to the poet Campbell, marriage looks like
madness in nine cases out of ten; and Haydn's venture was certainly no
exception.

The one upon whom the composer's affections lighted was the younger
daughter of a barber named Keller. He had met her while a choir-boy in
the Church of S