disguise of a drunken soldier.  Unfortunately this scheme is frustrated by the arrival of the guard, who arrest the refractory hero and carry him off to gaol.  In the second act the Count succeeds in getting into the house as a music-master, but in order to gain the suspicious Bartolo’s confidence he has to show him one of Rosina’s letters to himself, pretending that it was given him by a mistress of Almaviva.  Bartolo is delighted with the news of the Count’s infidelity and hastens to tell the scandal to Rosina, whose jealousy and disappointment nearly bring Almaviva’s deep-laid schemes to destruction.  Happily he finds an opportunity of persuading her of his constancy while her guardian’s back is turned, and induces her to elope before Bartolo has discovered the fraud practised upon him.  The music is a delightful example of Rossini in his gayest and merriest mood.  It sparkles with wit and fancy, and is happily free from those concessions to the vanity or idiosyncrasy of individual singers which do so much to render his music tedious to modern ears.  Of Rossini’s lighter works, ‘Il Barbiere’ is certainly the most popular, though, musically speaking, it is perhaps not superior to ‘La Gazza Ladra,’ which, however, is saddled with an idiotic libretto.  None of his tragic operas except ‘Guillaume Tell,’ which belongs to a later period, have retained their hold upon the affections of the public.  Nevertheless there is so much excellent music in the best of them, that it would not be strange if the course of time should bring them once more into favour, provided always that singers were forthcoming capable of singing the elaborate fioriture with which they abound.  Perhaps the finest of the serious operas of Rossini’s Italian period is ‘Semiramide’ a work which is especially interesting as a proof of the strong influence which Mozart exercised upon him.  The plot is a Babylonian version of the story of Agamemnon, telling of the vengeance taken by Arsaces, the son of Ninus and Semiramis, upon his guilty mother, who, with the help of her paramour Assur, had slain her husband.  Much of the music is exceedingly powerful, notably that which accompanies the apparition of the ghost of Ninus (although this is evidently inspired by ’Don Giovanni’), and the passionate scene in which the conscience-stricken Assur pours forth his soul in tempest.  More thoroughly Italian in type is ‘Mose in Egitto,’ a curious though effective version of the Biblical story, which is still occasionally performed as an oratorio in this country, a proceeding which naturally gives little idea of its real merits.  In 1833 it was actually given under the proper conditions, as a sacred opera, strengthened by a generous infusion of Handel’s ‘Israel in Egypt,’ under the direction of Mr. Rophino Lacy.  It would be an idle task to give even the names of Rossini’s many operas.  Suffice it to say that between 1810 and 1828 he produced upwards of forty distinct works.  In 1829 came his last and greatest work, ‘Guillaume Tell,’