nt, and retired with his wife to the little Italian
village where he had been born of the peasantry. And there he spent
years founding schools and doing other works for the public good. He
died there in the arms of his wife, at the age of seventy-five; having
had no children, he willed his property to the poor of his native
village.

It is strange how much wrong we do to the geniuses of the second rate,
when they happen to be rivals of those whom we have voted geniuses of
the first rate; for the Piccinnis and the Salieris and the Spontinis,
who chance to fight earnestly against Glucks, Mozarts, and others,
often show in their lives qualities of the utmost sweetness and
sincerity, equalling that of their more successful rivals in the
struggle for existence.

For instance, there is Salieri, who was accused of poisoning Mozart, a
monstrous slander, which Salieri bitterly regretted and answered by
befriending Mozart's son and securing him his first appointment. When
Salieri was young and left an orphan, he was befriended by a man, who
later died, leaving his children in some distress. Salieri took care of
the family and educated the two daughters as opera singers. His
generosity was shown in numberless ways, and if by mishap he did not
especially approve of Mozart, he was on most cordial terms with Haydn
and Beethoven. He gave lessons and money to poor musicians; he loved
nature piously; was exuberant; was devoted to pastry and sugar-plums,
but cared nothing for wine. All I know of his married life is that when
he was fifty-five he lost his son, and two years later his wife, and he
was never the same thereafter. It is a shame to slander him as men do.

THE GRAND ROSSINI

One of the most remarkably successful men of his century was Rossini,
son of a village inspector of slaughter-houses, and a baker's daughter.
Once, while the husband was in jail on account of his political
sympathies, the mother became a burlesque singer, and when the father
was released, he joined the troupe as a horn-player. Rossini was left
in the care of a pork-butcher, on whom he used to play practical jokes.
He always took life easily, this Rossini. At the age of sixteen he was
already a successful composer, and had begun that dazzling career which
mingled superhuman laziness with inhuman zeal. Among his first
acquaintances were the Mombelli family, of whom he said in a letter
that the girls were "ferociously virtuous."

In 1815, he then being t