Boito is certainly a distinguished artist, but one who carries boldness almost to the point of temerity, and the desire to be original to the point of eccentricity; and this applies to the poet as well as to the musician. Thus his own countrymen find fault with certain daring peculiarities in his _Mephistopheles_, for instance, from a scenic point of view, his prologue with the chorus of angels, which has nothing to do with the subject; and from a poetic point of view, the use of odd and affected metres, as well as the use he makes from time to time of verse written in Milanese dialect, which has nothing to do with the true Italian language. As a musician also, he is criticised for having broken so radically with the ancient Italian melodic forms, without daring, however, to accept frankly the Wagnerian theories, but permitting whimsicalities and eccentricities which seem useless and appear only calculated to offend sensitive ears. Notwithstanding all that, he is very talented and remarkably clever. In a letter which Rossini wrote to Tito Ricordi, the famous music publisher of Milan, on the 21st of April, 1868, that is to say some weeks after the appearance and fall of _Mephistopheles_ at the Scala theatre, I find these interesting lines: "I desire to be remembered to Boito, whose great talent I appreciate infinitely; he has sent me his libretto of _Mephistopheles_, by which I see that he is too precocious in desiring to be an innovator. Do not fancy that I would make war on innovators! I simply prefer that people should not claim to do in a day that which can only be accomplished in several years. Let the dear Giulio (Tito Ricordi's son, an excellent musician and composer) read _benignly_ my first work, _Demetrio e Polibio_, and _William Tell_; he will see that I was not a crab! * * * * *" Rossini meant by this to indicate the artistic progress which he had made between his first and his last opera; he had gone steadily forward. Boito had wished to go too quickly, and had broken too openly with all the traditions. Hence the sad reception which the public gave to his _Mephistopheles_ in its first form. Profiting by this warning of the public, Boito took his work in hand, modified it without destroying its character, by smoothing the rough places, made the desirable concessions and saw himself recompensed for his pains by a success as complete as had been its previous failure.