f Paris and London, as the
enthusiasm awakened in musical circles has rarely been equaled.

Bellini had placed himself under contract to write two new works
immediately, one for Paris, the other for Naples, and retired to the
villa of a friend at Puteaux to insure the more complete seclusion.
Here, while pursuing his art with almost sleepless ardor, he was
attacked by his fatal malady, intestinal fever.

"From his youth up," says his biographer Mould, "Vincenzo's eagerness in
his art was such as to keep him at the piano night and day, till he was
obliged forcibly to leave it. The ruling passion accompanied him through
his short life, and by the assiduity with which he pursued it brought on
the dysentery which closed his brilliant career, peopling his last
hours with the figures of those to whom his works owed so much of their
success."

During the moments of delirium which preceded his death, he was
constantly speaking of Lablache, Tamburini, and Grisi; and one of his
last recognizable impressions was that he was present at a brilliant
representation of his last opera at the Salle Favart. His earthly career
closed September 23, 1835, at the age of thirty-one.

On the eve of his interment, the Theatre Italien reopened with the
"Puritani." It was an occasion full of solemn gloom. Both the
musicians and audience broke from time to time into sobs. Tamburini, in
particular, was so oppressed by the death of his young friend that his
vocalization, generally so perfect, was often at fault, while the faces
of Grisi, Rubini, and Lablache too plainly showed their aching hearts.

Rossini, Cherubini, Paer, and Carafa had charge of the funeral, and M.
Habeneck, _chef d'orchestre_ of the Academie Royale, of the music. The
next remarkable piece on the funeral programme was a _Lacrymosa_ for
four voices without accompaniment, in which the text of the Latin
hymn was united to the beautiful tenor melody in the third act of
the "Puritani." This was executed by Rubini, Ivanoff, Tamburini, and
Lablache. The services were performed at the Church of the Invalides,
and the remains were interred in Pere Lachaise.

Rossini had ever shown great love for Bellini, and Rosario Bellini,
the stricken father, wrote to him a touching letter, in which, after
speaking of his grief and despair, the old man said:

"You always encouraged the object of my eternal regret in his labors;
you took him under your protection, you neglected nothing that could