Before finally settling in the French capital, Rossini visited London, where he was received with great honors.  “When Rossini entered,"* says a writer in a London paper of that date, “he was received with loud plaudits, all the persons in the pit standing on the seats to get a better view of him.

     * His first English appearance in public was at the King’s
     Theatre on the 24th of January, 1824, when he conducted his
     own opera, “Zelmira.”

He continued for a minute or two to bow respectfully to the audience, and then gave the signal for the overture to begin.  He appeared stout and somewhat below the middle height, with rather a heavy air, and a countenance which, though intelligent, betrayed none of the vivacity which distinguishes his music; and it was remarked that he had more of the appearance of a sturdy, beef-eating Englishman, than a fiery and sensitive native of the south.”

The king, George IV., treated Rossini with peculiar consideration.  On more than one occasion he walked with him arm-in-arm through a crowded concert-hall to the conductor’s stand.  Yet the composer, who seems not to have admired his English Majesty, treated the monarch with much independence, not to say brusqueness, on one occasion, as if to signify his disdain of even royal patronage.  At a grand concert at St. James’s Palace, the king said, at the close of the programme, “Now, Rossini, we will have one piece more, and that shall be the finale.”  The other replied, “I think, sir, we have had music enough for one night,” and made his bow.

He was an honored guest at the most fashionable houses, where his talents as a singer and player were displayed with much effect in an unconventional, social way.  Auber, the French composer, was present on one of these occasions, and indicates how great Rossini could have been in executive music had he not been a king in the higher sphere.  “I shall never forget the effect,” writes Auber, “produced by his lightning-like execution.  When he had finished I looked mechanically at the ivory keys.  I fancied I could see them smoking.”  Rossini was richer by seven thousand pounds by this visit to the English metropolis.  Though he had been under engagement to produce a new opera as well as to conduct those which had already made him famous, he failed to keep this part of his contract.  Passages in his letters at this time would seem to indicate that Rossini was much piqued because the London public received his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, with coldness.  Notwithstanding the beauty of her face and figure, and the greatness of her style both as actress and singer, she was pronounced passee alike in person and voice, with a species of brutal frankness not uncommon in English criticism.