Debarred by the limited income at their disposal from taking any prominent part in political life, cut off from ordinary domestic ties and interests, the archbishops were driven to seek compensation for these deprivations in some favourite pursuit; and to their credit be it said, not the delights of the chase or the table alone engaged their attention. The old genius of appreciation of art transferred its presence from the Arno to the Rhine, and began to exert in the Electors of Cologne an influence of great importance in the æsthetic development of Germany. The four last Electors especially distinguished themselves, and shed a lustre on their court, by the number of talented men they drew around them, and the liberal patronage they bestowed on music and the drama. Joseph Clemens, the first of these, was himself a composer, after the usual fashion of royal dilettanti, no doubt, but a keen discerner of talent in others. His successor, Clemens August, had passed his youth in Rome, where, although modern taste was on the decline, the imperishable monuments of art by which he was surrounded seem to have breathed something of their own spirit into him. He did a great deal towards beautifying the town of Bonn; built, besides churches and cloisters, an immense palace, the present university, and greatly enlarged the villa of Poppelsdorf, now the Natural History Museum. His household was conducted on the most magnificent scale, grand fêtes were of common occurrence, and his court was thronged by celebrities of every rank. Especially did the reputation of the court music stand high. The archbishop, like his predecessor, was a connoisseur, and selections from the operas of Handel and the cantatas of Sebastian Bach were performed at Bonn in a style worthy of the imperial court at Vienna. It was to this brilliant little capital, then, that young Ludwig van Beethoven made his way in the year 1732, with a light heart and still lighter purse, and begged for an engagement as one of the court musicians, which distinction, after the customary year's probation, was formally granted him, with an annual stipend of four hundred guldens, at that time considered a very good income for so young a man.