Page:Anecdotes of Great Musicians.djvu/139

Rh were placed with their backs toward their royal audience, and forbidden to look around to satisfy their curiosity concerning the rulers of the earth. But Spohr was also equal to this emergency, for he had provided himself with a small mirror, and by this means was able to see at least the reflections of the sovereigns of Europe. But he finally became so absorbed in the magnificent acting of the tragic artists that he handed over the mirror to his pupils and gave his entire attention to the stage.

The severe practice that he had been through in learning to play the horn at such short notice, resulted in a pair of swollen and painful lips. On his return to Gotha, when his young wife expressed surprise and alarm at his negro-like appearance, he coolly told her that his lips had come to that condition by the frequent kissing of the pretty Erfurt women. But when the truth came out the joke was on him.  

Of the two hundred and forty-seven men of the name of Bach who were known as musicians, there were over fifty who were distinguished as composers and performers. In that part of Germany where the most of these quiet, home-loving people lived, they had been for generations so prominent in local musical affairs that the town musicians were. known as "the Bachs," even after there had ceased to be any of the name among them.

But of all the Bachs, John Sebastian was "the" Bach. He is generally known as simply "Sebastian," for the name "Johann" is found so constantly in the family that to use it alone would fail to distinguish the particular "Johann" that was meant. Out of the twenty-three most prominent Bachs, the first name of sixteen was "Johann" and six of them was labeled as "Johann Christoph." But there was only one "John Sebastian," and it is an incident in his early youth that we here relate. 