How far, after all, was Salieri capable of influencing the music of his day? Joseph's taste had been formed on the tradition of Italian music, represented by Hasse and Piccinni, and his predilections retained the same direction. His wish to develop a national school of music proceeded from rational conviction; and, though he was intellectually capable of appreciating the works of Gluck and Mozart, they were not really after his own heart. He had avowedly accustomed himself to look for entertainment in music, and was overpowered by the independent power and fulness which Gluck, Haydn, and Mozart brought to bear upon their art. Salieri had no reason for combating the Emperor's inclinations, since they were also his own. He skilfully sought to turn to account the acquisitions which music had made in various directions, and to make Italian opera capable of satisfying the demands of a more enlightened taste. With the exception of the operas written for Paris, in which he consciously followed Gluck's manner, he remained throughout true to the tradition of Italian opera, introduced no new element into it, and did not possess {SALIERI AND MOZART.} (205) originality enough to make an indelible mark on the music of the day. But it was just this mediocrity of talent, skill, and taste which won for him the favour of his imperial master and of the public; it would have required the possession of a singular union of moral and artistic greatness and magnanimity to acknowledge rising genius as superior to his own, and to bow himself down before it--and Salieri was not capable of this. He is described as a benevolent and good-tempered man, amiable in his private life, and adorned with the well-deserved fame of noble and generous actions;[46] but these good qualities did not preserve from envy either his reputation or his position. In the year 1780 he had just returned from a lengthened tour in Italy, which had brought him new fame and honour, and had confirmed him in the favour of the Emperor; at this point Mozart made his appearance as a rival, dangerous by reason of his brilliant powers of execution, which most readily win the applause of the multitude, as well as by his compositions. The "Entführung" threatening to throw Salieri's "Rauch-fangkehrer" completely into the shade, and "Idomeneo" establishing its composer as a formidable competitor on his own ground, it was impossible that Salieri, who instinctively felt Mozart's superiority, could long pretend indifference to it. There was no interruption of their personal intercourse.[47] Mozart was friendly and unconstrained in his behaviour to his fellow-artists, "even to Salieri, who could not bear him," as Frau Sophie Haibl, Mozart's sister-in-law, relates, and Salieri was "too politic" to make any show of his dislike to Mozart. It was understood in Vienna, however, that he did dislike him, and that he secretly strove to check his progress, not only by depreciatory criticism,[48] but by every