late, Mozart's coffin was hastily thrust into the pauper's grave—being the last for the day it was uppermost,—the earth was hastily thrown in, and the great composer lay at rest in a pauper's grave.
But a stranger thing happened. After some years the grave was opened to receive more bodies of the unfortunate poor. The grave-digger remembered which was Mozart's grave and, having been an admirer of Mozart's music, he preserved the great composer's skull. This man sold it to a certain official, who in after years bequeathed it to his brother, and it was he who made known to the world the fact of this gruesome possession.
Be this as it may, Germany can by no admiration for Mozart's works at this day atone for her neglect of their author at the time of his need and distress. It will always be a blot on the good name of Vienna and the Fatherland.
NOTABLE MUSICAL ANTAGONISMS.
205.—HÄNDEL—BUONONCINI.
Musical history furnishes some notable instances of contest for public favor. Such rivalries have not been confined to the petted favorites of the footlights, the operatic stars; we find the strongest antagonisms between some of the prominent composers, or rather, their followers; the principals did not, as a general thing, share in the anger and denunciations of their partisans.
The first notable rivalry in the history of modern music was that between Händel and Buononcini, in 1720. The latter was an Italian composer, who had been invited to England to give prestige to the Royal Academy of Music, of which Händel was at the head. Händel was patronized by King George I, and for this reason
