m
Bohemia. Karl Stamitz is the one here possibly meant, since he died
about eighteen or twenty years previous to the publication of this
tale.]

[Footnote 5: Vincenzo Pucitta (1778-1861) was an Italian opera
composer, whose music "shows great facility, but no invention." He also
wrote several songs.]

[Footnote 6: Il Portogallo was the Italian sobriquet of a Portuguese
musician named Mark Anthony Simao (1763-1829). He lived alternately in
Italy and Portugal, and wrote several operas.]

[Footnote 7: Literally, "The slave of a _primo uomo_," _primo uomo_
being the masculine form corresponding to _prima donna_, that is, a
singer of hero's parts in operatic music. At one time also female parts
were sung and acted by men or boys.]

[Footnote 8: Leonardo Leo, the chief Neapolitan representative of
Italian music in the first part of the eighteenth century, and author
of more than forty operas and nearly one hundred compositions for the
Church.]

[Footnote 9: Giambattista Martini, more commonly called Padre Martini,
of Bologna, formed an influential school of music there in the latter
half of the eighteenth century. He wrote vocal and instrumental pieces
both for the church and for the theatre. He was also a learned
historian of music. He has the merit of having discerned and encouraged
the genius of Mozart when, a boy of fourteen, he visited Bologna in
1770.]

THE FERMATA.

Hummel's[1] amusing, vivacious picture, "Company in an Italian Inn,"
became known by the Art Exhibition at Berlin in the autumn of 1814,
where it appeared, to the delight of all who saw and studied it An
arbour almost hidden in foliage--a table covered with wine-flasks and
fruits--two Italian ladies sitting at it opposite each other, one
singing, the other playing a guitar; between them, more in the
background, stands an abbot, acting as music-director. With his baton
raised, he is awaiting the moment when the Signora shall end, in a long
trill, the cadence which, with her eyes directed heavenwards, she is
just in the midst of; then down will come his hand, whilst the
guitarist gaily dashes off the dominant chord. The abbot is filled with
admiration--with exquisite delight--and at the same time his attention
is painfully on the stretch. He wouldn't miss the proper downward beat
for the world. He hardly dare breathe. He would like to stop the mouth
and wings of every buzzing bee and midge. So much the more ther