More productive as poet, I have already said, than as musician, it was in this capacity that Boito appeared before the public during the interval that elapsed between the first and second editions of his _Mephistopheles_. He first published a little humorous poem, _Re Orso_, which had great success. Then he soon set to work to write opera librettos for various composers. He wrote, by order of Mazzucato, director of the Milan Conservatory, the poem of a little opera in one act, _un Tramonto_, the music of which was written by a pupil of the establishment, Gaetano Coronaro, become since then second conductor at the Scala. This opera was written for representation on the little stage of the Conservatory at the closing exercises of the academic year. It was to this work, which was afterwards played at several Italian theatres, that Coronaro owed his diploma on leaving the Conservatory. A little later Boito wrote the libretto of _la Falce_ for Alfredo Catalini, an opera which also appeared first at the Conservatory; then he gave to Amilcare Ponchielli the libretto of _Gioconda_, which was very successful in Italy and abroad. The subject of _Gioconda_ he had borrowed from one of the most beautiful of Victor Hugo's dramas, _Angelo tyran de Padone_, but he had reduced it for the lyric stage with great skill, preserving the principal situations, and those best calculated to excite the inspiration of the composer. Boito signed these various works with the pseudonym _Tobia Gorrio_, which forms an anagram of his name, Arrigo Boito. It was about this time that Boito wrote the words and the music of an opera entitled _Ero e Leandro_. The verses are exquisite, it is said, and worthy of a true poet, but the music did not satisfy him and he declined to make it known. He then confided the poem of _Ero e Leandro_ to the celebrated double-bass player, Bottesini, who was also a distinguished composer, and the opera with the latter's music was performed in 1879 at the royal theatre of Turin. Boito had not entirely condemned his own score, however, and he embodied several fragments of it in his new edition of _Mephistopheles_, among others, the duet _Lontano, lontano_. He wrote librettos for other composers, particularly _Alessandro Farnese_ and _le Maschere_, and he published a volume of poems, _il Libro dei versi_ (Turin, Casanova, 1877,) which was very well received by the public, and parts of which deserve the honor of being included by Paolo Heyse in his _Antologia dei poeti italiani_.