318 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS there ; but it was only after Prince Esterhazy was dead that he was prevailed on by Salomon to cross the sea. A characteristic conversation between him and Mozart — which took place before he undertook this, in those days, really formi- dable journey — is recorded. " Papa," said Mozart, " you have no training for the great world, and you speak too few languages." Haydn replied : " My language is understood by all the world." He set out on December 15, 1790, and did not return to Vienna till July, 1792. In London, where he wrote and conducted a number of symphonies for Salomon, he was the " lion " of the season, being in constant request for con- ducting concerts and paying visits to the nobility. Of these symphonies Salo- mon once said to him : " I am strongly of opinion that you never will surpass this music." " T never mean to try," was the answer. But this must not be taken to mean that Haydn had given up striving after the truest perfection in his art, and it probably meant no more than that for the time he was satisfied with his work. Far more like the genuine expression of the feeling of the great artist was his utterance, just before he died, to Kalk- brenner : " I have only just learned in my old age how to use the wind-instru- ments ; and now that I do understand them, I must leave the world." Great as the work accomplished in his youth and early manhood unquestion- ably was, it remained for his old age to accomplish his greatest work, and that by which he is best known — the oratorio of "The Creation." It is said that the first ideas for this came to him when, in crossing the English Channel, he encountered a terrific storm. Soon after his leaving London, where the words had been given him by Salomon, Haydn set about composing the music. " Never," he says, " was I so pious as when composing ' The Creation.' I knelt down every day and prayed God to strengthen me for my work." It was first produced on March 31, 1799, his 67th birthday, at the National Theatre, Vienna, and was at once accorded an extraordinary share of popular favor. There is a pathetic story of the last performance of the work, at which Haydn, in extreme old age, in 1808, .vas present, when Salieri conducted. He was carried in an arm-chair into the hall, and received there with the warmest greeting by the audience. At the sublime passage, " And there was light ! " Haydn, quite overcome, raised his hand, pointing upward and saying, " It came from thence." Soon after this his agitation increased so much that it was thought better to take him home at the end of the first part. The people crowded round him to take leave, and Beetho- ven is said to have reverently kissed his hand and forehead. After composing
- The Creation," Haydn was prevailed upon to write another work, of somewhat
similar character, to words adapted from Thomson's poem, and entitled " The Seasons." This, though containing some fine descriptive music and several choruses of great beauty, is not at all equal to the earlier work, though at the time its success was quite as complete. But the exertion of writing two such great works, almost without rest between them, was too great, and he himself
