which was written for the Grand Opera in Paris.  The libretto was the work of many hands, and Rossini’s own share in it was not a small one.  It follows Schiller with tolerable closeness.  In the first act Tell saves the life of Leuthold, who is being pursued by Gessler’s soldiers; and Melchthal, the patriarch of the village, is put to death on a charge of insubordination.  His son Arnold loves Matilda, the sister of Gessler, and hesitates between love and duty.  Finally, however, he joins Tell, who assembles the men of the three forest cantons, and binds them with an oath to exterminate their oppressors or perish in the attempt.  In the third act comes the famous archery scene.  Tell refuses to bow to Gessler’s hat, and is condemned to shoot the apple from his son’s head.  This he successfully accomplishes, but the presence of a second arrow in his quiver arouses Gessler’s suspicions.  Tell confesses that had he killed his son, the second arrow would have despatched the tyrant, and is at once thrown into prison.  In the last act we find Arnold raising a band of followers and himself accomplishing the rescue of Tell; Gessler is slain, and Matilda is united to her lover.

‘Guillaume Tell’ is not only indisputably Rossini’s finest work, but it also give convincing proof of the plasticity of the composer’s genius.  Accustomed as he had been for many years to turning out Italian operas by the score—­graceful trifles enough, but too often flimsy and conventional—­it says much for the character of the man that, when the occasion arrived, he could attack such a subject as that of Tell with the proper seriousness and reserve.  He took what was best in the style and tradition of French opera and welded it to the thoroughly Italian fabric with which he was familiar.  He put aside the excessive ornamentation with which his earlier works had been overladen, and treated the voices with a simplicity and dignity thoroughly in keeping with the subject.  The choral and instrumental parts of the opera are particularly important; the latter especially have a colour and variety which may be considered to have had a large share in forming the taste for delicate orchestral effects for which modern French composers are famous.  ‘Guillaume Tell’ was to have been the first of a series of five operas written for the Paris Opera by special arrangement with the government of Charles X. The revolution of 1830 put an end to this scheme, and a few years later, finding himself displaced by Meyerbeer in the affections of the fickle Parisian public, Rossini made up his mind to write no more for the stage.  He lived for nearly forty years after the production of ‘Guillaume Tell,’ but preferred a life of ease and leisure to entering the lists once more as a candidate for fame.  What the world lost by this decision, it is difficult to say; but if we remember the extraordinary development which took place in the style and methods of Wagner and Verdi, we cannot think without regret of the composer of ‘Guillaume