At the head of the clique which had sworn eternal enmity to Mozart, was Salieri, a musician with a sort of Pontius Pilate reputation, owing his infamous celebrity to the fact that his name is now inseparably coupled with that of the sublime composer whom he would have destroyed. Salieri (whom we have met with before in Paris as the would-be successor of Gluck) was the most learned of the Italian composers at that time residing in Vienna; and, therefore, must have felt the greatness of Mozart's genius more profoundly than any of the others. When _Don Giovanni_, after its success at Prague, was produced at Vienna, it was badly put on the stage, imperfectly rehearsed, and represented altogether in a very unsatisfactory manner. Nor, with improved execution did the audience show any disposition to appreciate its manifold beauties. Mozart's _Don Giovanni_ was quite eclipsed by the _Assur_ of his envious and malignant rival. "I will leave it to psychologists to determine," says M. Oulibicheff,[75] "whether the day on which Salieri triumphed publicly over Mozart, was the happiest or the most painful of his life. He triumphed, indeed, thanks to the ignorance of the Viennese, to his own skill as a director, (which enabled him to render the work of his rival scarcely recognisable), and to the entire devotion of his subordinates. He must have been pleased; but Salieri was not only envious, he was also a great musician. He had read the score of _Don Giovanni_, and you know that the works one reads with the greatest attention are those of one's enemies. With what admiration and despair it must have filled the heart of an artist who was even more ambitious of true glory than of mere renown! What must he have felt in his inmost soul! And what serpents must again have crawled and hissed in the wreath of laurel which was placed on his head! In spite of the fiasco of his opera, which he seems to have foreseen, and to which, at all events, he resigned himself with great calmness, Mozart, doubtless, more happy than his conqueror, added a few 'numbers,' each a masterpiece to his score. Four new pieces were written for it, at the request of the Viennese singers." M. Oulibicheff's compatriot Poushkin has written an admirable study on the subject presented above in a few suggestive phrases by Mozart's biographer. Unfortunately, it is impossible in these volumes to find a place for the Russian poet's "Mozart and Salieri." After the failure of _Don Giovanni_ at Vienna, a number of persons were speaking of it in a room where Haydn and the principal connoisseurs of the place were assembled. Every one agreed in pronouncing it a most estimable work, but, also, every one had something to say against it. At last, Haydn, who, hitherto, had not spoken a word, was asked to give his opinion. "I do not feel myself in a position to decide this dispute," he answered. "All I know and can assure you of is that Mozart is the greatest composer of our time."