By the advice of the shrewd prelate, the precocious boy was placed at the school of St. Onofrio at the age of fourteen.  At first confided to the care of an inferior professor, he revolted from the arid teachings of a mere human machine.  Obeying the dictates of his daring fancy, though hardly acquainted with the rudiments of composition, he determined to compose a mass.  The news got abroad that the little Niccolo was working on a grand mass, and the great Leo, the chief of the conservatory, sent for the trembling culprit.

“You have written a mass?” he commenced.

“Excuse me, sir, I could not help it,” said the timid boy.

“Let me see it.”

Niccolo brought him the score and all the orchestral parts, and Leo immediately went to the concert-room, assembled the orchestra, and gave them the parts.  The boy was ordered to take his place in front and conduct the performance, which he went through with great agitation.

“I pardon you this time,” said the grave maestro, at the end; “but, if you do such a thing again, I will punish you in such a manner that you will remember it as long as you live.  Instead of studying the principles of your art, you give yourself up to all the wildness of your imagination; and, when you have tutored your ill-regulated ideas into something like shape, you produce what you call a mass, and no doubt think you have produced a masterpiece.”

When the boy burst into tears at this rebuke, Leo clasped him in his arms, told him he had great talent, and after that took him under his special instruction.  Leo was succeeded by Durante, who also loved Piccini, and looked forward to a future greatness for him.  He was wont to say the others were his pupils, but Piccini was his son.  After twelve years spent in the conservatory, Piccini commenced an opera.  The director of the principal Neapolitan theatre said to Prince Vintimille, who introduced the young musician, that his work was sure to be a failure.

“How much can you lose by his opera,” the prince replied, “supposing it be a perfect fiasco?” The manager named the sum.

“There is the money, then,” replied Piccini’s generous patron, handing him a purse.  “If the ‘Dorme Despetose’ (the name of the opera) should fail, you may keep the money, but otherwise return it to me.”

The friends of Lagroscino, the favorite composer of the day, were enraged when they heard that the next new work was to be from an obscure youth, and they determined to hiss the performance.  So great, however, was the delight of the public with the freshness and beauty of Piccini’s music, that even those who came to condemn remained to applaud.  The reputation of the composer went on increasing until he became the foremost name of musical Italy, for his fertility of production was remarkable; and he gave the theatres a brilliant succession of comic and serious works.  In 1758 he produced at Rome his “Alessandro nell’ Indie,” whose