Salomon had wanted Haydn to write an oratorio in London, and handed him a copy of a libretto of _The Creation_, which one Lidley had compiled from the Bible and Milton's "Paradise Lost" for Handel. The proposal came to nothing then, but when Haydn got comfortably settled down in Vienna van Swieten repeated the suggestion. This van Swieten had been a parasitic patron of Mozart. He was an enthusiast for the older-fashioned forms of music, and he had concerts of oratorio in an institution of which he was librarian. Haydn passed on Lidley's book to him, van Swieten had it translated and doctored to suit his own taste, and Haydn set to work. He faced the task with a degree of seriousness and solemnity which the music would never suggest. In April of 1798 it was given for the first time, privately, at the Schwartzenburg Palace; in March of the following year it was given publicly at the National Theatre. From the beginning it was an electrical success, and was immediately performed everywhere. Haydn had been guaranteed 500 ducats for it, but gained very much more. In the end, in the way I have previously mentioned, it became the property of the Tonkünstler Societät of Vienna. In England it was for over half a century the "Messiah's" one great rival. Lately it has dropped out of the repertories of London and provincial choral societies. Fashions in sacred music, like fashions in popular preachers, have a trick of changing. No sooner was _The Creation_ fairly launched on a fairly long career than van Swieten wanted another oratorio. Somehow--or perhaps naturally--he associated oratorio with England, and as he could not get the music from us, he did as badly as he could--he came here for the poetry. The words of nearly all the oratorios are ridiculous. Those of _The Creation_ are no worse than the words of many by Handel. Van Swieten, however, did his honest best to provide Haydn with a downright silly book for his last work, and it must be admitted that by going to James Thomson's _Seasons_ he succeeded. Like _The Creation,_ it rapidly became popular in Germany, Austria, and England. It went out sooner than _The Creation_, and went out, I suspect, also like _The Creation_, never to return. It was given in April, 1802, at the Schwartzenburg Palace.