Still, he was dissatisfied with the result, and it is easy to suggest the reason. In the former of these two strains there is a passage which carries tonic harmony—out of place at this stage of the tune—and its cadence, moreover, rhymes awkwardly with that of the half-stanza. The latter of the two comes down from its point of stress with a fine sweeping movement, but, three bars from the end, breaks its melodic curve into two distinct pieces, and so loses continuity of line. Both were accordingly corrected, one on the same page, the bottom stave of which bears, in hasty manuscript, the amended form— [Music] the other, with a few more minute alterations, at a later period of the work. And thus, of such diverse metal as Cellini cast his “Perseus,” did Haydn beat out the melody by which he has given voice to a nation’s patriotism. It is to be hoped that these examples will not encourage any reader to pursue Haydn with the cry of plagiarist. No accusation could be more unfounded or more unreasonable. He poached upon no man’s preserve, he robbed no brother-artist, he simply ennobled those peasant-tunes with the thought and expression of which he was most nearly in accord. The whole extent of his indebtedness is at most an occasional melody, and is often but a single phrase; the treatment, the setting, the workmanship belong as truly to him as Faust to Goethe, or Cymbeline to Shakespeare. The master who has written a hundred and twenty first-rate symphonies, and eighty-three first-rate quartets, may surely claim the right to take his wealth where he finds it; and if we are churlish enough to deny this, at least we may allow him the privilege of speaking in his native tongue. To Haydn, the folk-tunes were little more than the words of his accustomed speech, hardly obscured when the Church asserted her contrapuntal dignity, and reappearing in full significance when he returned to the untrammelled orchestra and the freedom of the four magic strings. It is more important to note how closely his special melodic gift is in sympathy with that of his people. Many of the tunes quoted above are among those which a critic would select as especially characteristic: there are literally hundreds of his invention by which, in a more or less degree, the same qualities are exhibited. No doubt he was not only the child of his nation, he had his own personality, his own imaginative force, his own message to deliver in the ears of the world. But through all these the national element runs as a determining thread. That “les grands artistes n’ont pas de patrie” is a sentence abundantly refuted by its very author; it assuredly finds no support in the life of the Croatian peasant who has made immortal the melodies of his race.