to palates blunted by the use of spirituous liquors. In a few
months everything may be learned which is necessary to produce these
exaggerated effects, but it requires much time and study to be able to
excite genuine emotion." Piccini followed strictly the canons of the
Italian school; and, though far inferior in really great qualities to
his rival Gluck, his compositions had in them so much of fluent grace
and beauty as to place him at the head of his predecessors. Some curious
critics have indeed gone so far as to charge that many of the finest
arias of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini owe their paternity to this
composer, an indictment not uncommon in music, for most of the great
composers have rifled the sweets of their predecessors without scruple.


V.

Paisiello and Cimarosa, in their style and processes of work, seem to
have more nearly caught the mantle of Piccini than any others, though
they were contemporaries as well as successors. Giovanni Paisiello,
born in 1741, was educated, like many other great musicians, at the
conservatory of San Onofrio. During his early life he produced a great
number of pieces for the Italian theatres, and in 1776 accepted the
invitation of Catherine to became the court composer at St. Petersburgh,
where he remained nine years and produced several of his best operas,
chief among them, "Il Barbiere di Seviglia" (a different version of
Beaumarchais's celebrated comedy from that afterward used by Rossini).

The empress was devotedly attached to him and showed her esteem in many
signal ways. On one occasion, while Paisiello was accompanying her in
a song, she observed that he shuddered with the bitter cold. On this
Catherine took off her splendid ermine cloak, decorated with clasps of