His old friend, Marianna Bulgarelli, died some years after he had gone to Austria, and she left him a large part of her considerable fortune. But he refused to accept it, as he was of opinion that it ought to have gone to her husband, to whom, accordingly, it was handed over. Metastasio is the only writer of librettos whose works have risen to the dignity of a classic. Indeed, they are still remembered when the composers who set them to music have sunk into oblivion. Some of his dramas seem to have been used by several composers in succession, and one, _La Clemenza di Tito,_ produced in Vienna for the first time with the music of Caldara on the fourth of November, 1734, was many years afterwards used by the illustrious Mozart. The highest favour of the Imperial family was bestowed upon Metastasio during the reign of Charles VI, and was continued by the Empress Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II. It was only natural that he should feel the most intense loyalty in return, and when the House of Hapsburg suffered cruel reverses in the War of the Austrian Succession, and later on, in the Seven Years' War, he sympathised acutely with his Imperial mistress. Alfieri tells us in his _Memoirs_ that he might have had an introduction to Metastasio during his stay in Vienna, but that he saw him one day in the park at Schönbrunn making the customary obeisance to Maria Theresa with an air of such cheerful adulation, that he conceived the most supreme contempt for so servile a poet. But surely this is carrying independence to the verge of churlishness. If Metastasio had not reason to show his gratitude, who had? And the most ardent opponent of tyranny must own that Maria Theresa had qualities that give her a lofty rank among the monarchs, not only of her own century, but of those past and to come. Metastasio lived in uninterrupted prosperity in Vienna for half a century, and when he died on the twelfth of April, 1782, he was universally regretted in the country of his adoption and in that of his birth. He amassed a handsome fortune of one hundred thousand florins, which he left to the family of the Councillor Martinez, with whom he had resided since he first came to Vienna.