First, then, we must consider whether the character of the Croatian people is such as to render its claim to Haydn reasonable and intelligible. It would be poor logic to illustrate our law by deriving a great artist from an inartistic nation. And the question becomes more pressing when we remember that Haydn’s whole family was musical, that he learned his first lessons from his father and mother, that his brother Michael long enjoyed a repute little inferior to his own. But to answer it in the affirmative is to run counter to an established belief. From Mrs. Western in “Tom Jones” to Barto Rizzo in “Vittoria” everybody has had a fling at the Croats. We have come to regard them at best as savages, and at worst as mercenary assassins. The associations that we connect with their name are those of war and pillage, of fierce onslaught and misused victory, of lives bartered for gain or spilled in mere wantonness. Their art is a matter into which we have never dreamed of inquiring, and we should as soon think of learning their language as of accrediting them with a literature. To dispel this superstition it is only needful that we should study the country. Few towns are more charming than Agram, few regions more delightful than the long fertile valley of the Save in which it lies. In the remoter districts there is still much ignorance and much poverty, but civilisation is spreading from the centre, and eliciting, not creating, the signs of progress. The strongest impulse of the national life is loyalty to race and Church. Recent events have shown us that outbreaks may readily be provoked in religious and patriotic causes, but the temper that will fight for them is not ignoble, and is not infrequently conjoined with the inspiration that will make songs in their honour. And throughout the country the love of music prevails.[4] The men sing at their plough, the girls sing as they fill their water-pots at the fountain; by every village inn you may hear the jingle of the tambura, and watch the dancers footing it on the green. Grant that the music is not always of a high order, that the tunes are often primitive and the voices rude and uncouth, still the impetus is there, and it only needs guidance and direction. Certainly the present condition of the race does not disqualify it to be the parent of a great composer. [4] Dr. Kuhač (Josip Haydn, p. 5) declares that one in every three of the population “either sings, plays, or composes.” And there is a significant Croatian proverb to the effect that “an age is known by its music.”