“Haydn, like Buffon, thought it necessary to have his hair put in the same nice order, as if he were going out, and dressed himself with a degree of magnificence. Frederick II had sent him a diamond ring; and Haydn confessed that, often, when he sat down to his piano, if he had forgotten to put on his ring, he could not summon a single idea. The paper on which he composed must be of the finest and whitest possible; and he wrote with so much neatness and care that the best copyist could not have surpassed him in the regularity and clearness of his characters. It is true that his notes had such little heads and slender tails that he used, very properly, to call them his _flies’ legs_. “It is said that no man had such a knowledge of the various effects and relations of colors and the contrasts which they were capable of forming as Titian. Haydn, likewise, possessed an incredible acquaintance with each of the instruments which composed his Orchestra. As soon as his imagination supplied him with a passage, a chord, or a single note, he immediately saw by what instrument it should be executed, in order to produce the most sonorous and agreeable effect. If any doubt arose during the composition of a symphony, his situation at Eisenstadt enabled him easily to resolve it. He rang his bell in the way agreed on to announce a rehearsal; the performers repaired to the rehearsing-room. He made them execute the passage which he had in his mind in two or three different ways; and, having made his choice, he dismissed them and returned to resume his composition. “Sometimes he supposed that one of his friends, the father of a numerous family, ill provided with the goods of fortune, was embarking for America in the hope of improving his circumstances. The first events of the voyage formed the symphony. It began with the departure. A favorable breeze gently agitated the waves. The ship sailed smoothly out of the port; while on shore the family of the voyager followed him with tearful eyes and his friends made signals of farewell. The vessel had a prosperous voyage and reached at length an unknown land. A savage music, dances and barbarous cries were heard towards the middle of the symphony. The fortunate navigator made advantageous exchanges with the natives of the country, loaded his vessel with rich merchandise and at length set sail for Europe with a prosperous wind. Here the first part of the symphony returned. But soon the sea begins to be rough, the sky grows dark and a dreadful storm confounds together all the chords and accelerates the time. Everything is in disorder on board the vessel. The cries of the sailors, the roaring of the waves, and the whistling of the wind, carry the melody of the chromatic scale to the highest degree of the pathetic. Diminished and excited chords, modulations, succeeded by semitones, describe the terror of the mariners.