Viotti was one of the artistic celebrities of London for several years,
but his eccentric and resolute nature did not fail to involve him in
several difficulties with powerful personages. He became connected with
the management of the King's Theatre, and led the music for two years
with signal ability. But he suddenly received an order from the
British Government to leave England without delay. His sharp tongue and
outspoken language were never consistent with courtly subserviency. We
can fancy our musician shrugging his shoulders with disdain on receiving
his order of banishment, for he was too much of a cosmopolite to be
disturbed by change of country. He took up his residence at Schönfeld,
Holland, in a beautiful and splendid villa, and produced there several
of his most celebrated compositions, as well as a series of studies of
the violin school.


III.

The edict which had sent Viotti from England was revoked in 1801, and
he returned with commercial aspirations, for he entered into the wine
trade. It could not be said of him, as of another well-known composer,
who attempted to conduct a business in the vending of sweet sounds and
the juice of the grape simultaneously, that he composed his wines and
imported his music; for Viotti seems to have laid music entirely aside
for the nonce, and we have no reason to suspect that his port and sherry
were not of the best. Attention to business did not keep him from losing
a large share of his fortune, however, in this mercantile venture, and
for a while he was so completely lost in the London Babel as to have
passed out of sight and mind of his old admirers. The French singer,
Garat, tells an amusing story of his discovery of Viotti in London, when