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His ideas about London were mixed and hesitating. He was chiefly
impressed by the size of the city, a fact which the Londoner of
to-day can only fully appreciate when he remembers that in Haydn's
time Regent Street had not been built and Lisson Grove was a
country lane. Mendelssohn described the metropolis as "that smoky
nest which is fated to be now and ever my favourite residence."
But Haydn's regard was less for the place itself than for the
people and the music. The fogs brought him an uncommonly severe
attack of rheumatism, which he naively describes as "English,"
and obliged him to wrap up in flannel from head to foot. The
street noises proved a great distraction--almost as much as they
proved to Wagner in 1839, when the composer of "Lohengrin" had to
contend with an organ-grinder at each end of the street! He
exclaimed in particular against "the cries of the common people
selling their wares." It was very distracting, no doubt, for, as
a cynic has said, one cannot compose operas or write books or
paint pictures in the midst of a row. Haydn desired above all
things quiet for his work, and so by-and-by, as a solace for the
evils which afflicted his ear, he removed himself from Great
Pulteney Street to Lisson Grove--"in the country amid lovely
scenery, where I live as if I were in a monastery."
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