_Guillaume Tell_ is Rossini's last opera. To surpass that admirable work would have been difficult for its own composer, impossible for any one else; and Rossini appears to have resolved to terminate his artistic career when it had reached its climax. In carrying out this resolution, he has displayed a strength of character, of which it is almost impossible to find another instance. Many other reasons have been given for Rossini's abstaining from composition during so many years, such as the coldness with which _Guillaume Tell_ was received (when, as we have seen, its _immediate_ reception by those whose opinion Rossini would chiefly have valued, was marked by the greatest enthusiasm), and the success of Meyerbeer's operas, though who would think of placing the most successful of Meyerbeer's works on a level with _Guillaume Tell_? "_Je reviendrai quand les juifs auront fini leur sabbat_," is a speech (somewhat uncharacteristic of the speaker, as it seems to me), attributed to Rossini by M. Castil Blaze; who, however, also mentions, that when _Robert le Diable_ was produced, every journal in Paris said that it was the finest opera, _except Guillaume Tell_, that had been produced at the Académie for years. It appears certain, now, that Rossini simply made up his mind to abdicate at the height of his power. There were plenty of composers who could write works inferior to _Guillaume Tell_, and to them he left the kingdom of opera, to be divided as they might arrange it among themselves. He was succeeded by Meyerbeer at the Académie; by Donizetti and Bellini at the Italian opera-houses of all Europe. * * * * * Rossini had already found a follower, and, so to speak, an original imitator, in Auber, whose eminently Rossinian overture to _La Muette_, was heard at the Académie the year before _Guillaume Tell_. [Sidenote: ROSSINI'S FOLLOWERS.]