characteristic quality as an original and creative mind. He modified
French music, and left great disciples on whom his influence was
radical, though perhaps we may detect certain reflex influences in his
last and greatest opera, "William Tell." But of this more hereafter.

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,