given, and the young composer heard frequent performances of string trios and quartets, such as they were. On the solicitation of Fürnberg, Haydn composed his first quartet, and seventeen other quartets followed within a year. The Countess Thun still remained a warm friend and used all her influence for his advancement. Fürnberg, who appears to have been very fond of him, was no less eager to push his fortunes. Through these two supporters he was introduced to Count Ferdinand Maximilian Morzin, a Bohemian nobleman, immensely rich and a great lover of music. He had an orchestra of some eighteen performers, which, when necessity demanded, was augmented by servants who were musicians. Through the solicitations of Fürnberg, Morzin appointed Haydn his Musikdirector and Kammercompositor, and in 1759, at the age of twenty-seven, the composer began, what was up to that date, the most important stage of his artistic career, and ended forever his painful and uncertain toil for enough to eat from day to day. For twenty-one years he had struggled in misery, almost hopelessly, but without ever losing wholly his faith in his future, and always buoyed up by his intense love for his art. When he entered on the duties of his new position it is not unreasonable to believe that he looked back on his past, on the childhood days when he was beaten and sent to bed hungry by the stern but well-meaning Frankh; on his days of neglect and cruel insult under Reuter; on his homeless wanderings through the streets of Vienna, on that chill November night, not knowing how to obtain food and shelter; on his humiliating lackey services to Porpora. It was all over now, however, and he was never again to know want for the half century he had yet to live. In his first year with Count Morzin, Haydn, taking advantage of the opportunities afforded him for hearing his own music performed by able musicians, wrote his first symphony. It is a brief work in three movements, for string quintet, two oboes, and two horns. It reflects Emanuel Bach strongly, but in its brightness and easy flow foreshadows the future style of the composer. It was the forerunner of one hundred and twenty-five symphonies, some of which were to break wholly with the past, and to widen infinitely the bounds of instrumental music, and to pave the way for a Beethoven. Haydn was now in comparative wealth. His salary was two hundred florins ($100), and in addition he received board and lodging free. Fortune seemed to smile on him at last. Unfortunately, in this bright hour he took a step which embittered his life for nearly forty years.