The Esterhazy family was distinguished for its love of music, and the first Prince Paul, who died nearly fifty years before Haydn entered on his long connection with this house, founded a private chapel, the performers in which were increased in number from time to time. There were a chorus, solo singers, and an orchestra, and they participated not only in the church services, but in concerts and eventually in operas. When Haydn joined the orchestra it consisted of only sixteen musicians, but they were all excellent artists, and the precision and finish of their playing surpassed anything of the kind that Haydn had previously heard. He was now free to exercise his musical invention in any direction that he saw fit to choose. The orchestra was at his call on any day and at any hour, and he was thus enabled to experiment with it, and as he himself said, "to observe what was good and what was weak in effect, and was consequently in a position to better, to change, to amplify, to curtail" his music according as a hearing of it suggested. He was now free from all care, cut off from the outer world, and able to give full play to the art aspirations that were in him. With all this independence on one side, on the other he was in a position not much higher than that of an upper servant. The agreement between Haydn and the Prince is still in existence, and some of its stipulations are so curiously humiliating that they are worth reproducing here. It is impressed on Haydn that he must be temperate; must abstain from vulgarity in eating and drinking and conversation; must take care of all the music and the musical instruments, and be answerable for any injury they may suffer from carelessness or neglect; that as he is an expert on various instruments, he shall take care to practice on all that he is acquainted with; that when summoned to perform before company he shall take care that he and all members of his orchestra do follow the instructions given and appear in white stockings, white linen, powder, and with either a pig-tail or a tie-wig. For pay, a salary of four hundred florins, to be received quarterly "is hereby _bestowed_ upon the said Vice-Capellmeister by his Serene Highness." In addition, Haydn is permitted to have board at the officers' table, or half a gulden a day in lieu thereof. The whole tone of the contract places the composer in the light of a menial. It is by no means likely that it was made intentionally offensive, and, in fact, it is doubtful if Haydn found it so. In Germany at that time, the musician was not highly considered socially, and the composer was far less esteemed than were the virtuoso of eminence and the vocalist of superior abilities. We read of musicians, in the establishments of some of these princely patrons, who, when they were not needed to play to entertain the guests, were expected to wait on table or to assist in the kitchen. [Illustration: MONUMENT TO HAYDN IN VIENNA. From a photograph.]