ee why Mrs. Haydn has had few defenders.

Heaven forbid that I should be considered as throwing all the blame for
the unhappiness upon the husband. Anna Keller had a remarkably long and
sharp tongue whose power she did not neglect; she once complained to her
husband that there was not money enough in the house to bury him in case
he died suddenly. He pointed to a series of canons which he had written
and framed. When he was in London revelling in his triumph, she sent him
a letter in which she asked him for money enough to buy a certain little
house she had set her heart on, naively adding that it was just a cosy
size for a widow.

Haydn bought it later for himself, and lived in it several years as a
widower. Carpani in his thirteenth letter draws a pleasant picture of
Haydn's life with his mistress Boselli, and incidentally describes how
various composers composed: Gluck with his piano in a summer meadow and
the bottled sunshine of Champagne on each side; Sarti in a dark room at
night with a funereal lamp pendant from the ceiling; Salieri in the
streets eating sweets; Paer while joking with his friends, gossiping on
a thousand things, scolding his servants, quarrelling with his wife and
children and petting his dog; Cimarosa in the midst of noisy friends;
Sacchini with his sweetheart at his side and his kittens playing on the
floor about him; Paesiello in bed; Zingarelli after reading the holy
fathers or a classic; Anfossi in the midst of roast capons, steaming
sausages, gammons of bacon and ragouts.

"But Haydn, like Newton, alone and obscure, voyaged the skies in his
chair; on his finger the ring of Frederick like the invisible ring of
Angelica. When he returned among mortals, Boselli and his friends
divided his time. For thirty years he led this life, _monotona ma
dolcissima_, not knowing his growing fame nor dreaming of leaving
Eisenstadt, save when he mused on Italy. Then Boselli died and he began
to feel the ennui (_le noje_) of a void in his days. It was then that he
went to London."

This mistress of Haydn's, whom Carpani and Fetis call Boselli and whom
Dies calls Pulcelli, is now generally called Polzelli, following the
spelling in Haydn's own handwriting. The pleasant legend Carpani gives
of Haydn's life with this woman, undisturbed by ambition until her
death, is as much upset by later writers as is the spelling of her name.
Pohl, closely followed by Haydn's recent biographer, Schmidt, describes
Luigia P