One of the few other British composers who attained distinction was John Field, who, like Balfe, was Dublin-born. He was the inventor of Chopin's Nocturne. The story is told that he had a pupil from whom he could not collect his bills. Finally in sheer despair he proposed, and, when she accepted him, found his only revenge in telling everybody he met that he had only married her to escape the necessity of giving her further lessons, which she would never pay for. The story seems to be, however, neither true nor well-found, for in spite of his awkwardness and the hard life he led at the hands of his teacher Clementi, who made him serve as a combined salesman of pianos and a concert virtuoso, he was said to have married a Russian lady of rank and wealth. She was really a Frenchwoman named Charpentier whom he had met in Moscow. She was a professional pianist, and bore him a son; then she left him, and changed her name, as did even the son. He was one of the many composers who should have been kept in a cage. CLEMENTI, HUMMEL, STEIBELT As for Clementi, he was chiefly notable for his miserly qualities, by which he rendered miserable three successive wives. The pianist Hummel, whom I always place with Clementi in a sort of musical Dunciad, is credited with having won a courtship duel against Beethoven, in which Clementi as the winner--or was it the loser?--married the woman. Another rival of Beethoven's in public esteem was Daniel Steibelt, forgotten as a virtuoso, but not to be forgotten for his splendid vices which range from kleptomania up, or down as you wish. He married a young and beautiful woman, who doubtless deserved her fate, since we are told that she was a wonderful performer on the tambourine. He succeeded to the post of Boieldieu, the eminent opera composer, who began life under poor matrimonial auspices, seeing that his mother was a milliner, from whom his father managed to escape by means of an easy divorce law issued by the French Revolutionists. BOIELDIEU AND GRÉTRY