From the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, October 1799, columns 103-4.
https://www.secm.org/misc/sun/sun.html
Our worthy Haydn, as is well known, found when he came to London a few years ago a not inconsiderable faction opposed to him. It was primarily Italians who attempted to stand in his way. A certain Giardini published two trios, in which Italian music is depicted with long, significant notes, while German music, on the other hand, is depicted with very short and insignificant little notes. The whole was intended as a swipe against Haydn’s music. Although the composer didn’t identify himself, choosing instead the name of a dilettante, everyone knew who it was. An English organist in the Royal German Chapel (the same one, in fact, who is now planning to publish Joh. Seb. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier) responded by having a sheet engraved in copper in which a sun of the German composers known to him is depicted. Joh. Seb. Bach is in the middle; immediately surrounding him are Handel, Graun and Haydn. The sun’s rays are filled with other German composers in the following manner:
Underneath the sun is an Italian owl that cannot bear the light of the German composers. To the side, however, are an Italian capon and a German rooster, in a position as if they were about to begin a fight with each other.
Our worthy Haydn is supposed to have seen this sheet. It is said that he was not displeased by it, was also not ashamed to be in the vicinity of Handel and Graun, and considered it even less of an injustice that Joh. Seb. Bach should be the center of the sun, hence the man from whom all musical wisdom streams.
F--l.