so to overburden its already florid measures with ornament that the story goes that once when she sang it for Rossini, the old master dryly remarked:  “A very pretty air; who composed it?” Figaro enters at the conclusion of Rosina’s song, and the two are about to exchange confidences when Bartolo enters with Basilio, who confides to the old doctor his suspicion that the unknown lover of Rosina is the Count Almaviva, and suggests that the latter’s presence in Seville be made irksome by a few adroitly spread innuendoes against his character.  How a calumny, ingeniously published, may grow from a whispered zephyr to a crashing, detonating tempest, Basilio describes in the buffo air “La calunnia”—­a marvellous example of the device of crescendo which in this form is one of Rossini’s inventions.  Bartolo prefers his own plan of compelling his ward to marry him at once.  He goes with Basilio to draw up a marriage agreement, and Figaro, who has overheard their talk, acquaints Rosina with its purport.  He also tells her that she shall soon see her lover face to face if she will but send him a line by his hands.  Thus he secures a letter from her, but learns that the artful minx had written it before he entered.  Her ink-stained fingers, the disappearance of a sheet of paper from his writing desk, and the condition of his quill pen convince Bartolo on his return that he is being deceived, and he resolves that henceforth his ward shall be more closely confined than ever.  And so he informs her, while she mimics his angry gestures behind his back.  In another moment there is a boisterous knocking and shouting at the door, and in comes Almaviva, disguised as a cavalry soldier most obviously in his cups.  He manages to make himself known to Rosina, and exchanges letters with her under the very nose of her jailer, affects a fury toward Dr. Bartolo when the latter claims exemption from the billet, and escapes arrest only by secretly making himself known to the officer commanding the soldiers who had been drawn into the house by the disturbance.  The sudden and inexplicable change of conduct on the part of the soldiers petrifies Bartolo; he is literally “astonied,” and Figaro makes him the victim of several laughable pranks before he recovers his wits.

Dr. Bartolo’s suspicions have been aroused about the soldier, concerning whose identity he makes vain inquiries, but he does not hesitate to admit to his library a seeming music-master who announces himself as Don Alonzo, come to act as substitute for Don Basilio, who, he says, is ill.  Of course it is Almaviva.  Soon the ill-natured guardian grows impatient of his garrulity, and Almaviva, to allay his suspicions and gain a sight of his inamorata, gives him a letter written by Rosina to Lindoro, which he says he had found in the Count’s lodgings.  If he can but see the lady, he hopes by means of the letter to convince her of Lindoro’s faithlessness.  This device, though it disturbs its inventor, is successful,