Ninety-two of us musical men attended the dinner; the ladies occupied the gallery. Barry Cornwall wrote a song in praise of the great musician, and Neukomm introduced into his commemorative ode a number of his old master's most beautiful airs. Field, Bohrer, and I played; we had choruses out of the 'Creation', and the music was worthy of the occasion, but the endless toasts spoilt everything. Not only did we drink to the memory of the 'immortal Haydn', but all musical celebrities, living and dead, absent and present, were toasted; the consequence was that some of the executants' fingers were rather heavy when it came to the second part of the music. << less