Arrigo Boito presents the peculiar example of a musician high in distinction in his own country, with a fair measure of fame in other lands, who, though past the age of fifty years has thus far produced but a single work, his _Mephistopheles_. This work, having at first met with a sad repulse in Italy, recovered itself in a brilliant fashion some years afterwards, and has since run successfully on almost all the large stages of Europe. He is perhaps the only known example of a composer who owes his reputation to a single work, and the uniqueness of the case makes it worthy of mention. It is true that Arrigo Boito is poet as well as musician, that he is more productive as poet than as musician, and that his fame in his own country addresses itself perhaps even more to the writer than to the composer. Another peculiarity of Boito's is that, like Wagner, he claims that a musician cannot write a good score unless he has also conceived and executed the poem of his opera, and he puts this theory in practice by writing the words and the music of his _Mephistopheles_. But he has belied himself by outlining the librettos of half a score of operas, of which he has confided to other artists the task of composing the music; so that, between his principles and his conduct there is an evident contradiction. Boito was born at Padua on the 24th of February, 1842. His father, who was a Venetian, was a distinguished painter. His mother, Polish by birth and education, was a woman of remarkable intellect, high birth and great culture. The eminently artistic conditions which surrounded his early childhood, and that of his elder brother Camillo, seemed to push them irresistibly towards the cultivation of the fine arts. Indeed, Camillo became an architect and distinguished art critic, whereas Arrigo devoted himself to letters and to music. Arrigo was only eleven years of age when he was admitted, in 1853, to the Milan Conservatory, where he formed a very strong and fraternal attachment for one of his fellow-students, poor Franco Faccio, an artist of great promise, who became conductor of the orchestra at the Scala theatre, Milan, and who died insane, cut off in the full vigor of youth and the full maturity of his talent in less than a year after. Both had for their masters at the Conservatory, Ronchetti and Mazzucato, and both finished their studies in the same year, 1861. Boito had written the words of a "mystery" in one act, entitled _le Sorelle d'Italia_, for which he and his friend Faccio wrote the music, and this little work was performed according to custom, by the pupils of the Conservatory in one of the exercises at the close of the year. It was so well received by the special audience gathered to hear it that the minister of public instruction granted to each of the young composers a premium of 2,000 francs to enable them to study abroad for one year.